Voyages of the Dawn Chaser Lucifers Sword
by Peladon
Summary: In which Jack and his 'angel' seek an answer to Barbossa's condition.
1. Chapter 1

**Voyages of the Dawn Chaser**

**Voyage Three - Lucifers Sword**

**Title:** Voyages of the Dawn Chaser 3 Lucifer's Sword  
**Characters:** Jack, OCs, Barbossa, BP crew, Gibbs , Calypso, Groves and sometimes the navy. No pairings at present.  
**Rating: **PG for Jacks turn of phrase, and also some politics  
**Disclaimer:** Characters belong to whosoever international law says they do, which for most of them certainly isn't me and I'm content  
**When:** Post AWE

**Chapter 1 - The Chase**

The chase was on and the prize was the Black Pearl. Jack might tolerate that perfidious mutineer Barbossa striding her decks again for a while, and for a purpose, but never the navy.

The Dawn Chaser had been built for speed, amongst other things, and it showed. Never more so than now when even the seas and winds seem to conspire to enable her to do her best.  
'Her best was more than impressive, was nigh on unimaginable if he were honest', Jack thought, standing at the rail, and he did a silent recalculation of his plans as he watched the pace of the water flowing beneath him and the rate at which the shoreline disappeared.

As the land faded into shadow he climbed to the helm and peered over Elanor's shoulder, watching those little lit up windows in silence while Ariadne displayed a stream of depth readings to her captain as she steered them out to who knew what. However this ghost did it she most certainly had the line well beat, Jack had to admit that, even he couldn't have taken the Pearl out of this bay at anything like this speed. No, he resolved silently, whatever reservations he might have, he most certainly wasn't letting this advantage skip away from him.  
'And the fact that such a thought occurred does not amount to an admission that I have any..... reservations at all, or even .. ...feelings of responsibility,' he told himself sternly.  
Elanor and her ghost could most certainly take care of themselves, and if they couldn't then one or other of them had only to say so. Though he still wasn't quite sure what he would do if one or other of them did.....say so that was. But he'd face that choice when it happened. 'Don't seem likely to happen anyways', he reassured himself as he watched Elanor's hands oh so confidently steer her ship away from land. He transferred his gaze to her face and wondered for a moment just how many times she had sailed to battle before, and with whom. He'd bet a cask of the best rum the Caribbean had to offer that this was not the first time. Then, with a half shiver, he pushed the thought away, reassuring himself that she had never seemed particularly blood thirsty. He could probably persuade her to walk the way of discretion should the need arise.

They left the island behind them before the sun had risen, not even waiting to take on the supplies Jack had purchased in Tortuga. It seemed that the ship was still well stocked and even if they had to live on grilled fish that it was a small price to pay for keeping the Pearl out of naval hands. Not that it seemed likely that they would, for Polly had provided them with additional provender. She and Elanor had gone into long and private conversation in the hour after Elanor had relayed the findings of her ghost's snooping, and then Polly had roused her neighbours and set about raiding store cupboards and barns. There had been a stream of people manhandling goods down to the shore in those early hours, and the long boats had made several trips, each one heavily laden. But it was done with goodwill and Jack had seen the flash of gold in the dim light as Elanor paid handsomely for the donations. He'd smiled to himself and wondered if her maybe ancestor would have parted with so much gold to people such as these with the same good grace. Did the woman know the meaning of the term barter he wondered?

But then he would not have bartered in such a circumstance either, and that trait, un-piratey though it might be, had bought him enough goodwill in the past to survive in harder times. Thief he might be when required, but fool he was not. Nor it seemed was she. Certainly she managed to avoid doing any of the rowing without appearing to try, and he wondered if Polly had conspired at that too.

Both he and Gibbs had complained at the weight that had to be rowed, pointing out that the food would be rotten before they could eat it. But Elanor had simply smiled and told them to get on with it if they wanted to be away by dawn, Polly had watched them with a serious face, and a somewhat baffled expression, but had kept the food coming. When Elanor had signalled that she would take no more Polly nodded and said that that Ben would collect the supplies from the port as agreed and hold them until the Chaser returned. Then she had gone back to the farm and what sleep the night could still offer her.

Jack could not help but notice that Elanor was now granted the same respect as himself, and was fully accepted as a person of authority, a ship's captain, by all of Polly's clan. The realisation caused him a certain amount of unfamiliar confusion, a mix of pride, gratitude and resentment warred in his breast, but he was damned if he knew why. Even so it was there and so far he hadn't managed to resolve it, in fact was doing his best not to think about it at all. Not that it mattered, soon he would have his own ship back and then he could put some water between them, though not enough to allow her and her ghost out of his sight, at least not for long. Assuming they were all of them still in one piece by the end of it that was. But there was a more than good chance they would be, he reassured himself as the ship slipped silently into deep water, under full canvass and on course for the Black Pearl and whoever was chasing her.

Open sea achieved Elanor turned the helm over to her ghost and went below to review her charts over breakfast, leaving Jack to his thoughts and Gibbs still dozing.

After five minutes or so of hesitation Jack followed her.

***

Christmas had passed if not unmarked at least poorly celebrated on the Intrepid. The slightly longer morning service in honour of the new Christ child and a double issue of ale to wash down a small amount of pudding being the only real change to routine. Hathaway had considered putting into port for the festivities but the strange behaviour of the Black Pearl, and some very unseasonable weather, kept them at sea. He had spent Christmas in some very unusual ways during his service to the crown, including passing one in a very unpleasant Spanish jail, but he had never before spent it playing cat and mouse with a ship that seemed leaderless and a sea that seemed to conspire to protect her from the consequences of that state. One more reason to feel unnerved. Hathaway, like Groves, was becoming very uncertain about the business. Or rather he was becoming certain that something other than normal events was in play. A possibility that he really didn't want to think about, yet one that he couldn't avoid picking at like a half healed scab.

It might have been easier if he could have supposed that Davy Jones was behind it, but Groves had squashed that hope when it was suggested.  
"No sir, as far as I could tell Jones did not control the seas. The Dutchman was not threatened by wind or weather, and she could submerge if needed, but Jones had no power over the sea itself."  
"He was not a true sea god then?"  
"No sir, Jones was what the stories said he was, a ferryman for souls lost at sea, at least if Beckett was to be believed. Though it is true that little of what he told us at the time proved to be the truth."  
Hathaway watched the heavy swell between them and the Black Pearl, a swell that was running against them and slowing them considerably, and he frowned,  
"So the maelstrom was none of his making?"  
Groves shrugged,  
"Not as far as we could judge. Though it is true that the manner of its coming was very strange. One moment the sea was calm and the weather set fair then suddenly the barometer was falling like a stone, cloud and wind arrived from nowhere and then that infernal storm began. Caused a lot of muttering on the decks."

Hathaway was silent for a moment,  
"Did Beckett comment on that? The suddenness of the storm that is," he said eventually.  
"No sir. But.." Groves hesitated for a moment watching the captain's face, then, seeing only interest, he went on. "Beckett was a strangely unimaginative man sir. Given events I mean. He knew about Jones, and what he was, and yet it did not give him any pause, it did not cause him to reconsider his actions, in any way. You might have thought that the proof of something so supernatural would have been reason to worry about the safety of his own soul, given what he had done. Yet it seems to have had no effect upon him at all. James Norrington commented upon it to Governor Swann, or so I heard, he said that a man using the power of the gods to gain his ends would do well to wonder how the gods might view that matter."  
"Gods Mr Groves? Was that the term he used?"  
"I wasn't present at the conversation sir, but it was mentioned in the wardroom and the report was that he spoke of gods. But it might have been just a word, indeed when I first heard of it I assumed he was referring to the old stories and meant nothing more by it. Only afterwards did I..." his voice tailed away unhappily.  
"Yes." Hathaway's voice was bland but understanding, "A lot of people had sudden cause to consider the state of their souls after that day, even the highest one might think. For most it would have been uncomfortable. To have such proof of the strangeness of life and death... "  
He let the words trail away, Groves of all people did not need to have the matter elaborated.

After a moments silence he resumed his questioning,  
"But tell me what the stories about Jones were exactly, I've heard many in different places."  
Groves nodded,  
"So had I sir, but the one that seemed to have most credence by... those who had close experience of Jones..."  
'James Norrington' Hathaway added the name silently, but said nothing to disturb Groves account for fear that the man might wonder why he was being asked to repeat what he had told so many times before. But that thought didn't seem to occur to him, like many afflicted by such guilt he could not speak of it enough, as if in doing so he might find some excuse that he had missed before.  
"Well, according to the story Jones" Groves was saying, "had been charged with ferrying the souls lost to the sea by a sea goddess; and if Jones existed then so might the goddess. Indeed most of the men thought that she must for how else could one such as Jones exist? Beckett was believed to know this for a fact, he had found out while Turner was aboard the Endeavour, before he was exchanged for Sparrow."  
"Yet Beckett did not fear her?"  
"It seemed not sir, and yet there were rumours that the pirates might have control over this goddess in some way, and that that Jones had tried to destroy her and was likely to feel her wrath if she found out. When the storm blew up there was a lot of muttering below decks that it was the goddess's doing."  
"Is that why Beckett's armada retreated without a shot fired?"

"Well...." Groves hesitated then gave a mental shrug, his career was already doomed and so there was no point in not saying it, "most of them had not wanted the fight to begin with, and by this time they had seen enough of Beckett to wonder at the desirability of him winning."  
He drew a deep breath as his mind dredged up memories he would rather avoid,  
" Stories of Mercer and his acts had been circulating for some time, ...about.... Miss Swann, and others too, and they made many men uneasy. The idea of facing the wrath of the Dutchman once she was no longer on their side was enough to change the minds of most. Even the faintest possibility that the pirates had a sea goddess at their backs swayed those who might otherwise have been tempted to stay and fight."  
Hathaway was silent for a moment, watching the black sails that somehow stayed on the horizon despite their efforts to catch her.  
"A sea goddess! A formidable enemy if such a one existed, so let us hope they were just stories Mr Groves. Sparrow having Jones at his beck and call is bad enough, but if he has a sea goddess up his sleeve then he is truly invincible, if he wishes to be. Or anyone who can persuade him to be their friend."

Groves frowned,  
"But does he sir? Are we sure that he wants anything at all? Why haven't we heard from him? He could have stated his terms weeks ago."  
Hathaway drew a deep breath and spoke slowly,  
"I don't know, but the mind of Jack Sparrow is not easily read Mr Groves. All paint and play is Captain Jack Sparrow and the man beneath them is not so easy to fathom. The biggest mistake you can make in dealing with him is to judge him by what he seems to be. Unless, perhaps, it is to judge him by what most men would do, or even want to do. That was probably James Norrington's mistake."  
"Sir?" Groves questioned.  
Hathaway smiled grimly,  
"It's a bad mistake to view Sparrow in the light of your own desires Mr Groves, yet that is what he inveigles most men into doing."  
"Desires sir?" Groves now sounded rather nervous as if somehow he had been led in murkier waters than he expected an officer to venture.  
Hathaway smiled at the tone,  
"Desires, Mr Groves, your wants and needs and wishes. Sparrow reads them and far better than most, and he adjusts his behaviour accordingly. He watches your voice, your face and body, and with every movement and word you arm him against you. He is always on the alert, even when he seems to be beyond caring, or drunk; in fact most particularly when he seems to be drunk. Take my word for it, never, ever, take your eyes off Sparrow when he seems to be in his cups."  
Hathaway looked back towards the fleeing ship,  
"On the surface he is simple enough, but that surface is what he wants to keep you seeing, and if you do so it will always lead you astray with him."

Groves looked at him in shock,  
"You sound as if you have known him sir?"  
Hathaway's face was nearly expressionless but there seemed to be a shadow in his eyes,  
" Oh I've met him Mr Groves, though knowing him is a different matter. I doubt that he would recall me, and I certainly hope not. I would not want to be remembered for that. But yes I have met him and I can well understand why James Norrington found him so difficult to swallow."  
He turned back to the man at his side and raised a warning finger,  
" If you have direct dealing with Captain Sparrow then remember this, he learnt the harshest of life's lesons early and far too much of what most men value mean nothing to him at all, he knows it for the sham that is all too often is, and what does matter to him perhaps matters too much. Corner him and he'll shine and shimmer at you and in that reflected light you'll not see the shadow beneath, but the shadow will be what matters. If he needs to he'll flirt and flounce and bend his knee to you, and you will think that primping is everything that he is and discount him for a drunken, whoring fool, forgetting the pirate that he also is. By the time you recall it he will be gone. Or he will have a pistol in your ribs, or a chain around your beloved's neck."  
The look on Hathaway's face held Groves silent, then the captain's hand dropped and he turned away again,  
"That was the lesson Beckett learned, and learned in such a manner that he never forgave Sparrow for it."

***

The below decks was as tidy and neat as the decks themselves, and all the supplies were gone from sight, somehow disappeared behind one of those doors that was always locked. Jack glared in the direction of one of them as he sauntered down the passageway towards the galley, in all the weeks he'd been aboard this vessel had not found a way to open those doors. But one day he was going to find what was behind them he promised himself again, not that he was sure how given that they had no obvious locks, or at least none that had keys that he would recognise. No doubt her ghost was custodian of those nether reaches of the ship, and so far he'd made no progress in getting around her either.

He found his fellow captain in the galley with charts scattered on the table and a cup of something long and hot in her hand.

"She was here," Elanor tapped the chart with a long and naked finger, " According to Ariadne she had been sailing in circles for some time."  
She looked up at Jack with a frown,  
"Was this man who took her an experienced sailor?"  
Jack raised his brows at the unexpected question.  
"Hector? Been at sea man and boy for close on half a century. Ten years of that he was technically dead mind."  
His brows drew together as he reconsidered that in light of his own experience. He flapped a hand as if to underline his uncertainty,  
"Well not dead exactly, more.. rather... let's say not alive.  
"Something you had in common then." She said calmly.  
Jack frowned at her,  
"Not so. Hector was killed fair and square and in a way no pirate could take issue with. He passed over in the proper manner, and his body should have been taken by the sea when it reclaimed the island. How Tia Dalma recovered his body I don't know, nor even if she did. For all I know she created him one from somthin' else. I'd not say she couldn't. Though it seemed like enough to the original for it to be the one I shot a hole in. Then again I didn't ask to see the wound when we met. Me not wantin' to encourage undesirable familiarity with the old traitor you understand."

"So he should be able to sail." She mused her eyes locked on something that looked to Jack to be a small picture frame full of writing, "Well enough to give this ship that's following him the slip, for the weather seem to be with him. Yet Ariadne's readings would say the contrary. Strange."  
His eyes widened as the writing suddenly seemed to move and he reached out a covetous hand, but Elanor slipped it into her pocket before he could get as much as a finger in striking distance. He glared his displeasure but her eyes were back on the charts,  
"But where would he be going? He's not headed for Tortuga, nor Jamacia, nor Cuba. In fact he seems to be sailing in circles." She looked up at Jack with a frown, "They must be low on food and water if nothing else. Yet they show no sign of trying for land. They run from the ship that's following them but not with any purpose that I can see."

He joined her in staring down at the chart listening carefully as she described how the Pearl had been moving, but her behaviour made no more sense to him than it did Elanor.  
"Something is odd," he said slowly when the explanations were finished, "Hector might be a treacherous dog, and an unimaginative one at that, but he's a better captain and sailor than this would suggest."  
"Could someone else be in command?"  
"Can't see as how, " Jack bit at his lip, "there were no one left on the Pearl who would set up in opposition to him, not having got Gibbs off, and he was in good enough health as far as I recall. Though it was true that he was a little strange."  
"Strange?"  
Jack gave her a droll look,  
"He left me whole and in port when he took my ship, that's not Hector's way at all. He had no great love for me and I would have thought he would have preferred to leave me at least a little damaged. But he had been something unlike himself since we met on the Locker shore." He shrugged, "Just put it down to the fact that he needed me alive."  
Elanor rolled the chart and sipped her drink, watching as Jack tapped his finger on the tabletop as he thought.  
"Have you any idea about what we are going to do when we find them?" she said eventually. "According to my calculations if the wind days with us that will be in about three days time."

Jack didn't intend to ask himself why Elanor was so willing to chase his ship for him, nor why it was that she apparently taken it for granted that they would. He certainly wasn't going to ask her. But it had made him uneasy, though he wasn't about to admit it even to himself.  
"And this ship that's followin'? You are sure that it's navy?"  
"No I'm not sure, but it has the right sort of specification and who else is likely to be following them this way?"  
"Aye that's true. But why would they be doing it either? Why not just blow her out of the water?"  
"Ariadne and I had some thought on that, we think they want to take the ship intact."  
"Why? They are the navy for God's sake, they sink pirates, that's what they do. Seems like that it's all some of them want to do!"  
"We are back to the Commodore again are we? " she muttered.  
"Not likely since he's dead, but he weren't the only one who wanted to see me hung!"  
"But they don't want you dead now do they? At least not yet."  
Jack drew a deep sigh,  
"No. The bloody heart again. They want the ship to draw me out, that what you think?"  
She nodded calmly, and he frowned,  
"Well makes sense, I suppose. At least as much as any thing seems to make any sense these days. They must know that if they take her I'll try and take her back, might plan on catching me while I do it."  
He grinned at her,  
"Optimistic of them."

She seemed unwilling to comment on that, but that might have been because something else was worrying her,  
"I can't be seen Jack, you know that. If there is a way for me to aid you and the Pearl without being seen then I'll do it, but I can't be seen."  
Jack hunched a shoulder,  
"I know that. I'll not ask you to risk it. If you can just get me close enough to see how the land lies I'll be satisfied. The Pearl can outrun almost anything but the Dutchman, and even her in the right conditions, that she is danger of being caught gives me grave concerns about Hector's sudden loss of seamanship. Something has occurred, something untoward, and I need to know what it is. If I can get aboard then I can get her away and meet you when and where it is safer."  
Elanor stared at him,  
"Get aboard! How do you plan on doing that?"  
"I'll manage it somehow just get me in sight of the Pearl then leave the rest to me."  
With that he had sauntered off as if he didn't have a care in the world, though she knew him well enough now to read the tension in the set of his shoulders. She followed him back up to the deck in thoughtful silence

***

Gibbs was awake and standing at the rail staring out to the horizon and he turned as he heard Jack come on deck, but the greeting died on his lips as he took in the look on his friends face. Jack passed him without a word heading for the long boat. For a moment Gibbs watched him with anxiety in his face, then he crossed to stand beside Elanor,  
"What's up with Jack?" he asked in a not so quiet whisper.  
"The Black Pearl. She's not behaving as he thinks she should, at least not if this Hector was behaving as he should."  
Gibbs grunted his understanding,  
"Nothin' makes Jack as mad as the Pearl. Her loss drove him to near distraction once before and I don't think it will be any different this time. While Barbossa was in his right mind Jack could rest easy in the knowledge that he'd not risk the ship, but if he thinks that has changed then he'll not rest until he has got the Pearl back beneath his feet again. Be like a bear with a sore head he will until the matter is settled."  
Elanor nodded,  
"I noticed. He's mad indeed of he thinks we can get him on a fleeing ship in the middle of the ocean and without being seen."

It was Gibbs turn to nod, he sighed too,  
"But he'll not give up ma'am, Jack he never do. Might put matters to one side for a while but he never gives up. This time there will be no puttin' it aside either I'm thinking'."  
"No I 'd bet that you are right. Damn the man does he want to get himself killed just when....." she pulled herself up realising that they hadn't told Gibbs about the effects of the fountain and that now was probably not the time to do it.  
If Gibbs noticed there was no sign of it.  
"But can't say that I'd call him wrong for all that," he mused, "for what your ghost says is strange, mightly strange. Barbossa, now, is not what you might call a good man, nor even a good pirate, and there be few on the seas who'd mourn his passing, but he is a good sailor and for him to be playin' this cat and mouse game then something terrible be afoot. Jack needs to keep that in mind."

Elanor watched Jack as he set about stripping one of the long boat pulleys, as if to make sure that there would be a boat for him to take, and echoed Gibbs sigh,  
"What is it about this particular ship Mr Gibbs? Don't tell me it's just because Jack has a fancy for her because its clear that its more than that. He'd not risk killing us all for that. So I think its about time you told me a little more of story of Jack and his Pearl, don't you?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Voyage Three - Lucifers Sword**

**Chapter 2 Sightings **

As it was the seas and winds stayed with them, almost on their side it seemed, and it was little more than two days later that they first came upon the Black Pearl.

Until that point the weather had been brisk but fair, the sun hot during the middle part of the day even when its face was smeared by cloud, but the nights were chilled by the strong wind that was constantly carrying them forward. The edge of that wind seemed unusually sharp and caused Elanor to huddle into her sweatshirt and Jack to don his coat. Only Mr Gibbs seemed unaffected by it, in both sun and wind his shirtsleeves were seemingly enough protection against both heat and cold; sometimes Elanor wondered what that shirt, and the skin below it, were made of.

But she wondered more about Jack.

Jack had seemed uneasy and withdrawn almost from the moment they left the bay, despite the fact that, once again, they were about his business. He spent many of the hours of daylight sitting atop the mainmast just staring at the horizon as if he could make the seas carry them faster simply by watching them. On several occasion he had taken a bottle up there with him, giving her a defiant stare as he passed; though that stare had a slightly uncertain edge to it, almost as if he wanted her to stop him. Elanor had been careful to ignore both the stare and the bottle, even when he had waved it under her nose; he had not fallen from the rigging in all his time at sea as far as she could tell, and there was no reason to believe that he would do so now. Anyway she didn't consider his state of sobriety to be her business, it wasn't as if he was new to rum after all.

At times he had seemed disappointed by this forbearance, while on others he seemed relieved by her lack of comment. Elanor wondered who the posturing was for, given that they both knew that rum was less likely to be an effective escape since he had drunk the water of life. She had come to the conclusion that Jack drank when stressed, or bored, or both, at least when he was at sea, and that he knew it, and the risk that it carried. However, like any other imperfectly domesticated creature, only half of him wanted asking about it and petting, the other half wanted to be left alone, if not to run away. At the moment the part that wanted to run seemed to be winning.

That half wary mood hadn't stopped him being Jack though, and he had appropriated her sunglasses on three occasions at least, once going so far as hiding them in his cabin even though he knew that Ariadne would tell her where they were. When she liberated them from under the mattress, and returned to the deck wearing them, he had merely given her a brightly false smile, then taken the first opportunity to swipe them again. This time he contented himself with wearing them while she was below decks, coming down from his perch and handing them back with a flourish of ostentatious virtue when she emerged into the sun again.  
"Not got any more of those I suppose?" he'd asked hopefully as she took them without as much as a sigh, "improves the world somewhat."  
"Sorry no, and I'd not hand them over if I had, they need to stay on board and I'd rather not risk you strolling around Tortuga in them."  
That brought a grin from him but no further comment.

As they closed on the Pearl's location the grin became rare and he became yet more withdrawn. When she came upon him at the rail, staring silently at the darkening sky, there had been a set to his mouth and a subtle grimness in his expression that she hadn't seen before. How he planned to retake the Pearl he still hadn't explained; though he checked the boats and their tackle twice a day she couldn't really believe that he intended to row across open water to his ship. But it was clear that he intended to board somehow, whatever the risks involved.

Elanor didn't press him for answers, knowing what he must feel was at stake, and knowing only too well that he was feeling uneasy for more reasons than those he might understand. Ariadne had confirmed that the water of life was still working its' changes on them, particularly in Jack's case. The rate of change had slowed down for her, some of the alterations it triggered had probably been made to her long before she arrived here, and the uneasy feeling had diminished along with it. Even so there was still a lingering strangeness that she couldn't quite put her finger on, and she knew that for Jack the feeling must be stronger still, even without the added burden of finding and saving the Pearl.

But that grim look had worried her. Jack Sparrow struck her as a determined man who would do pretty much what it took to achieve his objective, and for the moment she could not see how what it might take could be anything less than suicidal. Was he really ready to risk his hard won gains from the fountain in a madcap rush to recover his ship? She would have said not but that tight faced look had disturbed her and reminded her how new their acquaintance was and how different the worlds they came from were. It made her wonder just how well she could read him after all.

Gibb's story of Jack and the Black Pearl, told several times now, had added to her unease. Not only the fact that the pirate waited for ten years to take his ship back butthat the manner of his regaining her that first time had been both audacious and highly risky, for all concerned. Though being fair to him Miss Swann's danger had not been of his making, and her own experience of ardent young men told her that William Turner would have pursued the object of his affections somehow, with or without Jack. Luckily for them it had been with, their fate would have been in little doubt had they faced the undead pirates alone. She wondered if either of the pair realised just how fortunate they had been that their interests had coincided with those of Captain Jack Sparrow.

Undead pirates! When had she slipped into accepting things so easily? Once she would have dismissed it as nothing more than a fairy tale, and some part of her wanted to do that even now, but she believed that what Mr Gibbs had told her was close to the truth. True she had stripped the embellishments away with the easy skill of one more than used to dealing with half-truths, but she had not discounted enough of his tale for the story to be comfortable. In her own time and place the idea of trading with an immortal for the return of your ship would have been both absurd and impossible, yet that was what Gibbs insisted that Jack had done, and Elanor had seen enough here to know that there really were more things in heaven and Earth than explained by her philosophy. At least in this variant of the world. But if she accepted that then it meant that the man sitting at the top of her mainmast rigging had traded his soul, or one hundred years before the Dutchman's mast, she wasn't quite sure if they were the same thing or not, nor for thirteen years sailing the Pearl. That he had bought the services of something supernatural to raise a burned and sunken ship and restore her at a stroke to the vessel that Ariadne was watching. Jack had thought that ship worth a potential eternity of servitude to a harsh master only to have it stolen almost immediately by a man more ruthless, or at least less generous, than himself.

On the surface it was a stupid thing to have done, but Elanor could understand how he might do such a thing. Gibbs imperfect account of Jack's life suggested that he had been very young at the time, early twenties possibly, certainly not much more, and so still of an age when thirteen years could seem an almost unimaginable amount of time. Standing before Jones it could well have seemed that all manner of things might arise to make the repayment of the debt unnecessary, or avoidable. Particularly in a world where life was often short she had reminded herself, disease and injury must have seemed far more likely to claim him, and well before the due date, even without the ever present shadow of the cutlass, pistol and the noose. He might well have considered it unlikely that he would live long enough to have to make the trade. With the brand still healing on his wrist, knowing himself condemned whatever he did from that point on, why would he have expected to have to see the bargain to the end?

Yet that didn't alter the enormity of the gamble.

As she sat with her charts and a cold drink on the galley table she wondered how she would have viewed it if she had been faced with such a choice. Would she have done the same in his place? After some thought she was forced to admit that she quite probably would have done. Particularly if this barter followed on from an unpleasant and disillusioning experience as Gibbs had hinted that it had. Something to do with this man Beckett it seemed. Mr Gibbs had been uncharacteristically shy of telling her what, exactly, had happened and his furtive and evasive looks when she had pressed him for more details left her unsure was whether he knew but wouldn't say, or if he simply he didn't know.

Her curiosity about this Beckett character and his role in Jack's life was growing, partly because Jack himself avoided the topic on the few occasions that she raised it. He would talk freely about Jones, about this William and Elizabeth, and certainly about her possible ancestor Norrington, but he would not discuss how or why Beckett had hated him so, or what it was that he had done to lose his ship in the first place. Whenever she asked about it he would get a strange look on his face and he would turn it away with a grin and a shrug, usually accompanied by an irritating, ' time and tide luv, time and tide.'  
Whatever that was supposed to mean.

It was as if that was one thing he was unwilling to admit to, as if he were ashamed of it, and yet Jack apparently showed shame for nothing. Though she would be less willing to take odds that he felt none. What was it that he could have done that he couldn't admit it to her; that he seemed almost frightened of her knowing about? Certainly given the other tales he had spouted without a blink?

As they closed on the Black Pearl she found herself frequently wishing that she knew the answer to that.

***

The mist came upon them quickly, far too quickly for Elanor's peace of mind. The wooly shrouds of it swallowing the seas and replacing the fine weather almost in minutes. Ariadne had no answers about where it had come from, other than that the local air and water temperatures had shifted very quickly and for no discernable reason.  
"There was a local shift in the energy signature of the area too, about the time the change began but it is not clear that the two events were in any way linked." The calm voice explained, or rather didn't. "A second shift occurred not long after, and not far from the first but that too seems unexplained." She seemed more intrigued than concerned though.  
"A sudden fog, appearing just as we reach the target area, seems far too convenient to me. Certainly one as deep as this." Elanor commented.  
Ariadne considered that  
"It is unusual I agree, but such events do occur and there is no reason why this one should not occur at this time and place," she conceeded.  
"Other than the fact that there was no 'rational' reason for it to do so."  
If the cabin had been larger she would have paced it.

That was going to far for Ariadne,  
"Doubting that it is rational is itself irrational."  
"By that you mean what?"  
"If the changes were not caused by natural means then they must have been caused by supernatural ones, in this time there is no other alternative, and that conclusion is not itself rational on current evidence. What would be the alternative to a natural explanation? That Captain Sparrow acquired the ability to influence the natural world in that place he refers to as the locker? The fountain may have been created by a superior and long gone technology but that is not a factor in this situation."  
Elanor thought about that for a moment then sighed,  
"True. But there are far too many odd things happening for my taste."  
"I can appreciate that. But, then, if this world is not real that is not, of itself, surprising."  
"Yes,that is true, and so we are back to that again. But as we agreed before we have no choice to believe that it is. So we do what Jack wants and go after the Black Pearl and we hope that events continue to run in our favour. But I wish I knew just what he had in mind to take her. Where is he by the way?"  
"Taking a shower." Ariadne sounded resigned, "he has taken to washing with an unexpected fervour. The amount of hot water he uses is bordering on excessive, and a waste of power in the circumstances."  
Elanor grinned,  
"I'd noticed that he has no apparent objection to soap and water, though as you say I wouldn't have expected it from the state of him when we found him. But, being fair, I suppose it wasn't an option for him before he came aboard."  
The grin faded a little her expression becoming thoughtful and slightly sad,  
"He'll miss it I think; not that any such consideration will stop him. He wants that ship too badly. Can't condemn him for that, I'd probably feel the same in his situation."

Elanor was silent for a moment, then shrugged,  
"So keep stay at at full alert, scanner at maximum range, prepare to put the screws online just in case the wind turns against us, and run preparatory checks on the mast lasers."  
"Very well, but I would advise most strongly against getting involved in any skirmish, much less a battle."  
"Oh I understand that very well Ariadne, have no doubt about that. I wish I had a better feeling for what lies ahead too, no more information on this Barbossa character I suppose? Jack seems certain that's who we are chasing though I would have expected more guile from him given the stories I've heard."  
Ariadne replied without hesitation,  
"I agree, it seems it of character from what we have heard of him. He may lack mental agility but everything we have heard would lead me to expect him to be doing better than he is. But Captain Sparrow seems convinced it is he. I have not discovered anything about him in the history banks but that is only to be expected, there is nothing about Captain Sparrow either. Barbossa may be aboard the ship, there are a about twenty crew judging by the heat traces but I can't tell more than that, at least not until we are closer. They seem to spend much of their time on deck, no doubt the effect of the other ship's pursuit."  
"The possibly naval ship?"  
"Exactly. The crew's activity seems to be solely concerned with escape, and yet their actions are most ineffective. Whoever is captaining her they are not doing a very good job of it."  
"Jack thinks the same, it part of the reason he's desperate to get aboard. I just hope he doesn't kill himself in the process, it would be a bit ironic after all the trouble he went to find eternal youth."  
"Yes, and you would miss him." Ariadne stated flatly.  
"I've got used to him, and to Mr Gibbs " Elanor protested, then sighed, "and yes I'd miss him."

***

Jack turned off the waterfall and wrapped a towel around his hips before staring at himself in the bright clear glass that, somehow, he no longer thought of as hers. The towel was soft and warm, a reminder of what he was going to be leaving behind, and the deep blue colour threw the pale skin of his belly into contrast. In places the ink of old tattoos were smudges of similar colour, and, not for the first time since he arrived in this room, he wondered at the difference between the tanned skin of his throat and the colour of the flesh beneath his clothes. Now he squinted at that hidden skin carefully, seeking signs of what the water had done to him, and maybe was still doing. Slowly he traced a finger over the tattoo above his heart and tried to remember when he had had that one done, suddenly desperate to know what he had been feeling when this was drawn. Yet the memory of those long ago feelings eluded him, he could just about recall the place he had had it done, but nothing more than that, it seemed the past really was another country. How much would he remember fifty years from now?

For the first time it occurred to him that many of his memories of the past had lost much of their colour and detail on his return from the locker, as if dying had somehow washed across the slate of memory leaving only a faint imprint of what once had been there behind. Would the new ones be the same or was it his life beginning again? Had Barbossa been similarly affected, was that the cause of the change he had noticed in the old rogue in the weeks after they had returned from the eternal sea.

Elanor's words on Christmas night came back to him, and he wondered how it was going to feel to have memories stretching back over centuries, as Tia Dalma must have done, must still have come to that.

Jack shivered and pushed the thought of the sea goddess, and everything associated with her, away, and directed his attention back to his own image. He was used to this glass now, but he had not been used to looking at himself before he arrived here and he could not be sure how much about himself had changed, or not changed. His first experiences of this glass had been such a novelty that he had been taken up with what it was and not what it showed and iin the past he had never given the matter of his physical appearance much thought, other than to hope he looked to others like the man he purported to be. Now he wished he had taken more notice of how he had looked then, given that a single drink of water had banished that man forever. Or so he hoped.

He stroked the inked skin on his chest again and studied himself carefully. The man now staring back at him appeared less hungry looking somehow than that first man had done, or at least he thought that he did. The body above the dark edge of the towel was lean and hard, the legacy of years of physical work, frequent short rations and the need to be prepared for whatever came, but it didn't have the edges that he thought it had had when he first seen himself. He pressed his palm to his belly feeling the muscle flat and tight beneath his fingers, not rounded or soft yet, in fact the muscles seemed more solid and substantial, but not.... stripped ..... in quite the same way. The lines of his hip bones still showed clear above the blue fabric, but the pattern of his ribs was less obvious, and as he turned to look over his shoulder he decided that his knees and elbows, even his feet, seemed slightly better cushioned than they had been.

Whatever else she had done for him she had fed him well. even small rations on this ship kept hunger at bay with ease, but how much he couldn't be sure was simply down to consistent feeding. True he'd not been as active on her ship as he might have been on the Pearl, there was no real need for some of the more punishing chores here, certainly holystoning the deck seemed to be a thing of the past, and caulking and pitching too. He frowned to himself, come to think of it he'd not seen so much as a handful of tar in the time he'd been here, and there had been no leak or split timber or seam that he had been aware of; he made a mental note to ask her about that when he had time. The closest he'd come to servicing the ship had been repairing a frayed canvas, and he wasn't sure that she hadn't given him that to do to humour him. He glowered at himself at the thought then oushed it aside and continued his self inspection giving the swell of muscle in his calf and thigh a considering look. Couldn't see much change there either, but there were lots of those odd lines to be maintained, and the pulleys, and something else whats' name escaped him, so there had still been a fair bit of climbing to be done. He nibbled anxiously at the edge of his lip and scrutinised the spread of his shoulder and the curve of his buttock beneath the towel, reassurring him that he'd done enough work to keep him from losing his edge at least, and he'd need that edge in the next few hours.

He'd be fine, wouldn't he? Though he'd had a moment of doubt when Elanor had cocked her head, looked at the rum sideways and wondered out loud about the amount of sugar he was consuming and its effects on his belly. It had been during their drunken arguing it was true, and he'd not known about the evils of sugar before, but looking at the shape of Mr Gibbs it had made Jack wonder. Now he sighed and squinted along his own back again, glad to see that no little rolls had appeared. His skin seemed different though, at least he thought it did. Less...well..stretched.

The sight of his own, largely unmarked, back brought memories of the locker, particularly of his philosophical self, the man with the fine ink work. He saw himself shudder in the glass as the memory took hold, and he swallowed down on the sudden horror. Even now he could still feel the resistance of his own flesh and bone to that sword blade, and remember the shock and pain as the steel bit into him, thrust by his own arm. Even awake he could still see the sight of it on his own face. Odd that, recalling both the thrust and the being pierced, somehow they were bound up with each other, and there were times in his dreams when his self would be reversed and it would be the tattooed man who wielded the sword and he who felt the blade. But there was no sword wound now, nor much in the way of tattoos either, few scars too. No one had ever lashed him for he had been a hard working lad and become captain young, perhaps too young. Barbossa had satisfied himself with marooning him and Teague had always used his fists, after a mate of his had crippled his own son with his belt. Broken bones healed and bruises didn't scar the body like the lash or the iron. Not even Beckett had got around to using the lash on him, though there were a couple of white marks on his ribs and belly where the little sod's minion had played with the iron before the branding.

He tried to push that thought away but for once it refused to be disciplined. Would have been worse still if that young lad in scarlet, the one holding him, hadn't been so sick at the smell. Not that Beckett wouldn't have flogged him if he'd got the opportunity, just not in front of his masters or the sour faced justice he had needed to sanction the brand, but he had no doubt planned other little abuses. Bill had got him out of that pit before he had got the chance to exact a more private revenge.

He sighed sadly as memory became yet more undisciplined, William had felt the lash though and Jack had never intended that. The wheals on the lad's back had pricked his guilt more than any of the hard looks and words, for that was something else he had miscalculated. He had been sure that Bill Turner would have kept his son from even that harm, just as he had kept Jack all those years before. He shivered despite the warmth of the little room, and finally succeeded in pushing the memory away. Death had left no visible mark, though he still wondered how that was, was the fountain going to leave something more definite? Was her ghost right in claiming they were changed? Had it worked? Was he truly younger than he had been and would time just stand still from now on?

He stepped closer, staring at himself wide eyed as he ran a hesitant finger along his cheekbone and then his jaw. Would he see it, and if so, when? Would he know soon? When would he be able to be sure? His face looked the same, at least he thought it did, and yet perhaps it didn't. Yet that might nothing more than the waterfall behind him, for the shadow of dirt and tar had been washed away in those first few days. His hair which seemed thicker and longer than before, even the ropes lying darkly lustrous against the skin of his torso, and that skin was pale and whole and clean looking. He twisted his head this way and that, watching the muscle move beneath the skin, and he decided that he was indeed changed in some subtle manner, at least to his own eyes.

Something had changed and he might be risking in that in pursuit of the Pearl. Barbossa had left him alive the last time but there was no knowing if he would avoid seeking Jack's death if he re-boarded the ship.

Not that it mattered. Ten years he had sailed and pirated in a succession of ships, taking what life offered him as it were offered, yet he had never lost the longing to regain his ship, and he still hadn't. Risks or no he would try to take his ship back.

Jack stepped back from the glass and looked around him, thinking about the woman who owned all this and her ghost with a slightly guilty pleasure. He would miss the luxuries of this vessel it were true, particularly the soothing heat of the fountain behind him, but it would never be far away, he would see to that. He'd think about the hows' of that personal promise later he decided as dropped the towel and pulled on the robe beside him, smiling as he tightened the belt and picked up the wet cloth from the floor. He would board the Pearl and he would take her, with such allies as this how could Captain Jack Sparrow fail?

His smile became grim as he reached for the door, this time he would not give Barbossa the chance to steal her back.

***

They had come upon the Black Pearl and her pursuers late in the day and already the light was failing, though the mist made the position of the sun something of an irrelevance. Ariadne was unconcerned by it of course and gave the ship's position with complete confidence. Jack had learned to trust the 'ghost' some time ago and did not comment, though Mr Gibbs looked less convinced. Elanor was merely relieved that while the mist hid the Black Pearl and the Intrepid from them it also provided the Dawn Chaser with the cover that she needed.

But not for long it seemed.

Elanor stared at Jack in amazement,  
"You want me to do what?"  
He gave an elaborate sigh and spoke slowly, gesturing with his hands as if it made it more obvious,  
"I want you to pass the Pearl astern and drop me into the water as you do. Close, but not too close, " he pointed at her, "Mind I don't fancy too long a swim though."  
Elanor shook her head then looked at him in silence for a moment, brows raised, cursing herself silently, she should have known that he had something totally foolhardy in mind when he had refused to tell her his plans. Too late to worry about that now though.  
"And how, exactly, do you plan to get on board the ship, even if I do?" she asked eventually, ignoring Mr Gibbs squawk of protest and careful to make sure none of her sudden worry showed in her face or voice,  
He shrugged carelessly, and when he spoke his tone suggested that it was obvious  
"I'll throw a line as we pass, and use it to climb aboard."

She considered that for a moment, then drew a deep breath before speaking,  
"Let me get this straight Jack, you want me to pass close enough astern for you to throw a grapple and line onboard, then drop you as I leave to haul yourself up?"  
"Yes."  
She drew another deep breath then frowned at him.  
"No. I won't do it."  
Jack seemed taken aback,  
"Why not?" he demanded indignantly and glaring at her, "don't you think that I can do it?"  
Mentally she counted to five, and even then spoke through gritted teeth,  
"Which bit of 'must not be seen' don't you understand?"  
That drew him up short, and he pursed his lips before looking at her from under half lowered lashes,  
"Oh...Hmmmm." He seemed to think quickly then raised a triumphant finger,  
"But not by the navy! They won't see you in this mist, and the Pearl will be under my control so you'll have nothing to fear from her!"

Elanor closed her eyes briefly and wondered if the man had any nerves at all, because he'd not been on the rum today as far as she knew,  
"Assuming it all goes to plan." She said softly.  
That brought a baffled look from Jack,  
"Why shouldn't it?"  
She counted to five again,  
"Well you might miss the line, you might be seen before you get aboard and anyway you'll get pulled under as I pass, the Chaser's undertow is more than enough to drown you, add the Pearl's into the equation and you don't stand a chance."  
Jack nodded,  
"Aye. That's another reason why not to go too close."  
"You'll still drown Jack, unless you want me to drop sail and come to near a stop."

"No, " he spoke quickly, "keep your canvass up and move through sharply. The wind will be with you and in this poor light they will not see you coming, they may not even see you at all."  
He looked at her earnestly  
"Your ghost can bring you close but still keep you safe. The most any of the crew of the Pearl will see is a shadow and the navy won't see you at all. As I said, close but not too close." He grinned at her again, " I'll not miss with the line, trust me for that. I'll swim across under cover of this fog then scale the stern and slip in through the cabin window. There is a catch that's loose and I doubt Barbossa has had it repaired since he left me in the dock."  
"You'll still drown." She replied flatly, crossing her arms over her chest.

Jack looked at her silently for a moment before moving closer and putting his arm around her shoulder,  
"I'll be fine!" he said, as soothingly as he felt being a pirate allowed.  
But it obviously wasn't enough for Elanor looked up towards the topsail and sighed,  
"You're not going to listen whatever I say, are you?"  
He paused for a moment, disconcerted by the concern in her face, and then he smiled ruefully and shook his head, the beads in his hair rattling,  
"No luv, I'm not, not if what you say is no. I want the Pearl and I'll not miss this chance." He patted her shoulder, "not the first time I've scaled a ship, nor the first time I've gone over the side to get to one." He gave her a droll look, "Hope it won't be the last either."  
She looked back at him with resignation,  
"It will be if you misjudge that dive. We aren't in port Jack, we are in open sea with a powerful swell and a strong wind full astern. Ariadne and I can make sure we don't get too close, but once you are over the side then there will be nothing we can do to help you."  
He patted her shoulder again,  
"I know, but as I said I'll be fine."

Elanor moved away and turned to stare in the direction of the horizon, though the mist had swallowed everything into its strangely white and distorting maw and human eye's couldn't even see the Pearl at the moment, it took Ariadne's superior senses to do so. She knew that between her and Ariadne they could get the Chaser past the Pearl in safety, but there was no way of influencing what happened on the other ship's decks. The navy was closing too as Ariadne had warned her several times.

She turned back towards the man who was watching her so closely she could feel his eyes on her back,  
"Why astern Jack and why swim for it, why not a boat?"  
Jack hesitated then shrugged,  
"I've no way of knowing what Barbossa is about but it's odd whatever it is. I'd rather no one saw me until I know what's happening."  
She shook her head in surrender,  
"Well that makes as much sense as anything does I suppose. But what if Barbossa is in the cabin?"  
"He won't be, with the navy on his tail he will be on deck, particularly with the weather as it is." Jack's voice took on a confiding note and he slid his arm around her shoulders again. " Captain Barbossa can't be so sure of the crew that he will risk being anywhere else." He gave a shark's grin, "after all I wager that he promised them the fountain of youth, and we know that he hasn't managed that, so he will want to keep an eye on them. No, he'll be on deck. I'll be in and knowing what he's about before he knows that I'm there."

Elanor stared at him, eye to eye and with a grim smile,  
"You'd better be right about that. If he catches you then there is no saying which side the crew will call, they may know you have the chart but don't forget that they threw their lot in with him and are used to carrying out his orders. Habits like that are powerful factors."  
"Aye, but he has failed them luv, they should be more than willing to hear me out, at least they will be if I can get to him before he gets to me."  
"And what do you propose to do with him if you get to him?"  
Jack scratched his chin,  
"That depends. But I'll not be forgetting that he stole my ship a second time." He shot her dark and bleak stare, "trust me on that."

Elanor watched him for a moment but all she got was that same stare followed by that familiar smile, that when you met it told you nothing about his thoughts at all. Finally she drew a deep breath,  
"Madness must be catching. So go set up your line." She shook off his arm and stepped away,  
"Ariadne, steer a course astern of the Black Pearl." Her voice took on an ironic tinge, "Close but not too close as the man asked."

Jack watched her as she strode off towards the helm with a disconcerted, not to say slightly baffled look on his face, before turning away and setting about finding his line. Gibbs couldn't help but notice that for once he seemed subdued and far from triumphant about getting his own way, and wondered whether that was an omen.


	3. Chapter 3

**Voyages of the Dawn Chaser**

**Voyage Three - Lucifers Sword**

**Chapter 3 Boarding **

Hathaway saw the fog developing on the horizon, and just ahead of his quarry, and he sighed with some resignation but little surprise, wondering what was happening now. Those black sails would disappear from view soon and he was uncertain whether following her into the thickening haze would be the action of a sensible man; however much he might want to capture her he was determined not to make the same mistake as James Norrington. Even if he lost her now there would be another day and it was not worth risking his crew if he could avoid it, though he doubted that the ship he was following was at the same risk.

There had been no warning of inclement weather, it had been set fair for the last three days, though the wind direction had been unexpected for the season and the seas had been running in a somewhat unusual manner. But that aside nothing in the sky or winds to suggest that they were likely to come upon a sea fret here, much less the deep and spreading fog he could see developing ahead of them. As the Black Pearl became a shadow against the fading horizon he called for Groves.

The black ship was still ahead of them, they were not getting closer but nor was she increasing her lead, though she would have lost a slower vessel than Intrepid by now. His crew had striven tirelessly throughout the days and nights to keep those patched black sails in sight, and their skills at getting the best from their ship had kept them in the race, if race was what it was. Yet somehow Hathaway had been sure that they would not catch her almost from the start of the chase, for if he was to entice Sparrow into the open he probably needed that ship and he was not sure that he was to be allowed to find him, at least not yet. Sparrow had disappeared completely into a fog no less dense than the one they were sailing towards and Hathaway doubted that he could have managed to vanish so completely without some help.

Yet where would that help come from? Perhaps Groves would have an idea.

The other man was hurrying across the decks still settling his coat and straightening his wig as he came, obviously roused from his bed. Hathaway noticed the dark shadows under the eyes that met his with some wariness and the look of strain about the well-shaped mouth and couldn't blame him for his tardiness for he bore a heavy burden. Of all the people on board only Groves knew what his captain knew and, more weighty still, was the only one remaining who had seen the events that had brought them here. Their Lordships had not given him much succor having had some doubts about the report that Groves had given them, but then who would not doubt it? It had only been the sudden and belligerent approaches from the Spanish that had caused them to reconsider their opinion and take seriously that which at first had seemed preposterous. Even so their lordships had been surprised when the King had taken it so seriously, yet more so that the privy council had insisted that Hathaway be involved.

Their lordships were not at all sure of Captain Hathaway, any more than they were of Groves, and he knew it as well as any. But he had known Beckett before, and had seen many strange things in his colourful career, and he found it all too easy to believe the tale Groves had told, particularly when the stories of mass graves were already circulating and the Endeavor was lost. Their lordships had not known that the King and his advisers had had some doubts about Beckett and his intentions even before he reached Jamaica, and that some of those had been raised by Hathaway himself. They had only known some part of it of course, he had many more suspicions that he had not disclosed, not least about Sparrow's compass.

Now as the he watched the ship ahead of them some of the stories came back with a force that sent his heart thudding, for an idea was taking shape that caused him considerable concern. If Sparrow was not captaining that ship, and it seemed he wasn't, then another pirate captain must be, for an honest man would not be running this way. But the pirates had dispersed after the battle and Sparrow had sailed alone towards Tortuga. There had been no mention of another pirate captain aboard her, while the man Gibbs had been seen in Tortuga with Sparrow so it wasn't him at the helm. Which left him... who...as his adversary?

There had been a name mentioned in the taverns, yet it had seemed impossible given James Norrington's report. Could he have been mistaken? Given the stories of Sparrow was not even that impossible idea a possibility? Maybe that was more pressing than the source of Sparrow's help, for the moment at least. With a hidden sigh he turned to Groves.  
"Tell me again Mr Groves what you know of Hector Barbossa."

In the whiteness off the port side Calypso heard him ask and grinned.

***

On the Black Pearl the sudden fog had added to the sense of strangeness, making the crew even more uneasy than before. The navy ship was still just visible from the deck, still behind them, but in front and to each side the seas were swallowed into a wavering and shifting whiteness. Pintel and Raggetti exchanged uneasy glances remembering the slip over the edge of the world into the locker, and, though neither of them spoke of it, even to each other, they both were wondering if the Pearl was maybe set on returning there. Or maybe she was being stolen back by something they didn't understand. Both of them found themselves thinking about the daft pair's conversation about the Pearl and Jack Sparrow, and wishing with unusual fervour they had not sided with Barbossa in leaving captain Jack behind.

Murtogg and Mulroy, neither of them sailors, were even more unnerved by events, having never seen anything like this fog before. They stood stiff and nervous at the rail watching in unspoken dread for any sign that a giant beast was lurking in wait. Marty had insisted that the Kraken was dead, but, as they had whispered to each other when the mist first appeared, there was no certainty that it had been the only one of its kind. Nor were they really sure that it couldn't come back from the dead, not when both the captains of this same ship they were standing on had done just that.

As the gut wrenching moments passed the air got thicker, as if it were a pall of smoke rolling out across the water, and for the first time in days the outline of their pursuer disappeared from view. No one felt like cheering though, for none of them doubted that it was still there, waiting for the fog to thin before closing on them again. Meanwhile they sailed into the mist without a captain, pretty much blind, without charts and with no real idea of where they were sailing to, or what awaited them.

Then the wind dropped and the canvas slackened letting their forward speed drop. As the Black Pearl seemed to hang back more of her crew rushed to the rail wondering what new misadventure was about to befall them.

At first they could see nothing but the woolly whiteness, and then, seemingly from nowhere, there was a shadow, like a hint of smoke against a candle flame, that seemed to hover before them. A ship perhaps, and with her sails swelling, but just an outline in the thick and swirling air behind them. Then the lookout bellowed a warning, though even he was not sure what it was that he was seeing. At their stern the mist seemed to darken as the shadow became more solid for a moment, and more threatening, the towering suggestion of masts speaking of something fast and formidable.

Suddenly the wind began to pick up again, though not in the Pearl's favour this time, sending the shadow in the mist rearing against the swell. Marty rushed back towards the stern and for a moment he thought he caught the sound of water rushing around a hull, the hiss of the swell being cut by a keel and the crack of billowing canvas. The Pearl appeared to shy, pulling on her head like a frightened horse, as if she knew there was something out there and was afraid of collision. He squinted into the curtain of whiteness and thought he saw a flash of a different white and the outline of a mast or two, fully rigged, the canvas they held strong and round bellied in the folds of the mist. Then something moved, snaking from the stranger towards the Pearl and he opened his mouth to yell the call to stations, but at the last moment he held his breath uncertain about just what it was he was seeing. He was glad he had when nothing happened and the shadow seemed to turn away from them. As quickly as it had arrived it slipped into invisibility without making any contact.

'Could nat have been a ship' he told himself, no sailor would risk coming so close to another vessel in such weather, and if it had been another ship they would certainly have collided. He sent a silent prayer to Calypso for taking pity on them this time, and not sending them to the bottom speared on another vessels bow, and then hurried back to join the others clustered at the helm But certain now that they could not risk sailing without a captain for very much longer and he cursed the sleeping Barbossa in every dialect that he knew.

****

"The line is attached." Ariadne confirmed laconically to the helm console.

So it had run true, just as he had said it would. Elanor waved an ironically congratulatory hand as Jack turned to beam triumphantly at her. He responded by quirking an amused eyebrow at her expression, widened his grin still further and pointed a finger at her as if to say 'Ha. See!'

They were running silent as agreed and passing closer to the Black Pearl than was entirely comfortable, even with Jack's assurances. Elanor did not fear collision, both she and Ariadne were far too good for that to be a worry, but she was not convinced that human eyes would not see more of them than she wanted, despite the mist. Nor was she as sure as Jack seemed to be that the line would not be seen, however true his aim might be. If they saw the line then they might well take him before he reached the supposed safety of the cabin, and if he got caught before he was prepared then his reception might well be more hostile than he could cope with for all his airy assurance. It was her concern over this that had persuaded her to allow him to use a limpit rather than a grapple, despite her desire to avoid the contact of the two technologies. But the limpit did not need a rail to loop over and it could attach the line to the frame of the cabin casement and so below the line of the deck and sight. Jack had looked momentarily confused when she had explained this to him, but he had agreed with her reasoning and accepted that a grapple might well be seen. About the only modification to his plan that he had accepted though!

Once Ariadne had said her piece Jack flipped a hand to Elanor in a half mocking salute, shot a quick smile towards the worried looking Gibbs and went over the side before the other two could have second thoughts.

***

For all his determination to do it, and his dismissing of the dangers when talking to the other two, Jack had never doubted that getting on board the Pearl would be a difficult and unpleasant experience. As soon as he hit the water he realised that he had been unfortunately accurate in his estimation, on that at least.

The tow of the Chaser pulled at him as she passed by, but he was ready for it and he took a single large gulp of air before he was pulled down, but even prepared as he had been it was a struggle to hold on to it and the line in the churning waters.

There was no time to lose and even as the ship passed him he was already striking upwards towards the shadow of the line, but he was able to see enough of her keel as she passed to be reminded just how strange this ship from the future was. Even in the turbulence it was clear that, however superficially familiar she was above, below the water line she was unlike any other ship that he had ever seen. But he had no time for speculation on that for the Pearl was close too and he needed to make his move before she traveled on.

Summoning all his strength he kicked against the current and towards the surface, dipping his head and striking out towards the trailing end of the rope, released by Ariadne as he soon as he broke through. The black bulk of the Pearl was moving slowly and Jack sent up a silent prayer that he was right and the crew would be more concerned with the navy and the disappearing shadow of the Chaser than anything going on in the water.

He stretched to catch the rope feeling it pull taught as it took his weight, then he was being towed like a speared shark behind the Pearl.

Time to move.

The mist still boiled above the surface of the sea, in it the bulk of the Pearl was a dark shadow. He tightened his grip on the rope, remembering Elanor's warnings about the effort it would take, then he took another deep gulp of air before he reached for another handhold. Stretching despite the protest of his shoulder and the pull of the sea he reached as far up the line as was possible.

It seemed that for a moment the water would really oppose him, swirling around his legs and torso, the current still bent on pulling him under. But then Chaser was gone and suddenly the pull was slackened. Jack gritted his teeth and threw his arm forward again, the convulsive heave taking his left hand over and above his right. Without bothering to take another breath he repeated the movement, this time right hand over left. Then again, and again, muscles screaming and his jaw aching with the tight clench of his teeth. Sweat broke out on his brow, joining the salt spray stinging his eyes, and the roar of his heart was almost deafening. Fire flamed in his shoulders and arms and then between his shoulders, every muscle shook with the strain of it and every tendon was corded and hard, but he held on determined that the Pearl would not leave him behind this time. Two more hand shifts and his torso was out of the sea, two more again and his hips were clear and only his legs trailed in the water. The next hand shift was less painful and so was the one after it. After what seemed to be an age he got enough leverage on the rope to pull his feet clear of the water and begin the struggle up the rope, hand over painful hand.

Only once did he allow himself to wonder if he would have been able to do this before he had drunk the water of life for it was certainly harder than climbing the anchored Dauntless. Or maybe that was because this time he was alone. Or was he? At times he thought he could hear a voice, a worryingly familiar voice at that, urging him on, telling him to hurry.  
"Tryin' aren't I? What more do you think I can do? Eh?" He panted in the privacy of his head, not thinking about whom it was he was talking to. "I'll not lose me ship again so do something more useful than chatter at me and give me a hand."  
He might have imagined it but it seemed that he heard the waters gurgle a laugh then a gush of wind raced across the surface and put a spectral hand on his backside, lifting him two hand holds higher in a single movement.  
"Oi," he protested, "What is it about people of the female persuasion? I've said it before but I'll say it again, easy on the goods!"  
The laugh seemed to be repeated and the hint of a hand was withdrawn with just a faint wind borne caress down his thigh as it was. Jack smiled to himself and redoubled his efforts to climb.

Now he was close enough to brace his feet against the Pearls dark side, at least for part of the time, and he moved faster, hand over chafed and burning hand. As he climbed he talked to her, reassuring her that he was back and that soon he would stand at her helm again. Reassuring her too that, lovely though the Dawn Chaser and her captain might be, it was she who was still his favourite girl. He thought he heard that gurgle on the wind again but ignored it still concentrating on placating the Pearl for his absence.

Once level with the casement he took no time to explore the strange disc that held the rope so securely, though he noted it for future interrogation of its owner. Instead he moved to find the damaged catch sending up a silent prayer to someone that it remained damaged. He had been right in thinking that Barbossa would not have taken time for further repairs once he found the map gone, the hurried rebuilding of the window of the great cabin still showed some of the scars left by the Kracken's attack. As he had hoped the catch was still unsecured and it was the work of a moment to slip a knife beneath it and ease it free. Jack smiled to himself as he pushed the window open and with a flick of his body he was sliding over the sill. As he dropped to the floor he leant out and unclasped the tell tale line and let it go, then he flicked the clinging disc free, secreting it in the depths of a pocket. He looked around with satisfaction, finally he was home.

***

"The limpit has been released." Ariadne told her captain.  
"He made it then." Elanor sighed and rubbed a hand across her eyes feeling some of the tension in her shoulders release.  
"It seems likely, there is no sign that the limpit failed."

Gibbs watched in anxious silence for a moment and Elanor summoned up a reassuring smile, with Jack on his Pearl she was, for the moment, Mr Gibbs only captain. She reached forward and put a reassuring hand in his arm for a brief moment  
"The line is free, and the device detached, so it seems likely that Jack has made it into the cabin."  
"Aye ma'am, so it does." But his relief was short lived "Now all Jack has to do is deal with Barbossa and the rest of the crew." He looked out at the curtain of mist, "and with no help at all but his wits."

Elanor looked back to where they had left the black ship and her would-be again master, there really was nothing that could be said to that.

***

Jack dipped into a crouch, pulling his pistol from his belt as he did so. He had meant it when he insisted that Barbossa would be on deck but that didn't also mean he was safe here, at least not for the moment. Once he had Barbossa captive it would be different, he was sure of it, but for the moment it would pay to be a little cautious. He smiled grimly to himself, but then he was a little cautious more often than most people would have believed, it was why he was still alive despite there being more than one person still in the world who would rather that he wasn't.

The light in the cabin was dim and he remained crouched as he waited for his eyes to accustom themselves to the gloom. The ghosts of the past were crowding in on him here, memories of those first few days after his return when he and Barbossa had vied for domination even as they recognised that neither of them were quite who they had been when last they had met. Jack shivered and pushed the memories away staring around for any sign of a current threat.

Gradually shadows resolved into objects, tables, chairs and chests, and everything reassuringly familiar. The cabin was still much as it had been when he had left for his assignations on the dockside at Tortuga, the only real change the messy pile of charts upon the table and an even less tidy pile of bedding on the cot. Whatever he had been doing Barbossa had not been refitting the Pearl.

Jack straightened slowly, ears straining for any sound, and looked around him. The mist had cut the light from outside to a faint glow and none of the lamps were lit but there was enough light to see that the chair was unoccupied and Barbossa's coat was not hanging on the peg. He edged his way across the cabin and set his ear against the door. From the other side he could hear the sounds of sailors moving around, the thud of footsteps, the creaking of rope and the snap of canvas all accompanied by the muffled shouts of men about the business of running from the navy in a fog.

As he listened he thought he heard the lookout call a warning, and then the sounds of scurrying seemed to move towards him, no doubts they had caught another sight of the Dawn Chaser as she slipped back into the mists. All as he had expected, or not quite, one sound seemed to be missing, and that was Barbossa's angry roar, but if he were at the helm then maybe that was not so surprising.

Jack eased himself away from the door and back into the room, silently slipping through the shadows to the open window, closing it as tightly as he could before beginning a search of the familiar room. He needed clues to what Barbossa was about for his actions made no sense at all, a fact that made Jack uneasy. With a faint sigh he stepped back towards the table and the scattered charts, smiling in satisfaction when he saw the remnants of Sao Feng's chart tossed on the top of the pile. No doubt Barbossa had looked at it every day and cursed his leaving of Jack Sparrow behind. Well he'd do more than curse when Jack got hold of him.

But that was for later, for the moment he must look for his answers, and it was in the rest of the pile of charts that he might find clues of Barbossa's intentions. That and in the other charts that were scattered about the floor like rice at a wedding. A further puzzle and concern they were for he had never known Barbossa to be careless with those things his life relied upon. But as his eyes accustomed themselves to the light he could see that the cabin was far from the ordered place that a good captain kept it, in fact it looked as if there hadn't been a captain here for some time, and as if monkey Jack had run wild in it to boot!

Pausing only to be sure that no one was approaching the cabin he set about spreading out the pile of charts on the table. He took his time about it, turning them this way and that in search of some meaning in the selection, but he found none, for they proved to be a motley, even illogical, collection. Jack shuffled them like a deck of cards, tried laying them out this way and then that but he could make no sense of why this set had been preferred over any other.

For a moment he stood silent, frowning at the dusty carpet, the only sound the staccato tap of his finger on the top most chart . A disappointment to be sure that these charts gave him no insight at all to what had been going on aboard the Pearl for he did not have the time to waste in serious nor contorted cogitations. But try as he might he could see no pattern to them that made any sense, it was as if someone had chosen them at random with little thought for what it was that they were looking at. Odd.

With a sigh he abandoned the maps as a source of explanation and began a search of the rest of the cabin.

After the otherworldly cleanness of the Dawn Chaser the cabin of the Pearl seemed neglected. Charts and papers spilled out of every chest and bureau, some half in and half out, others scattered across the floor like a breadcrumb trail. Jack collected them up without being aware of doing so, returning them to their rightful place as part of his searching. But it wasn't only the charts that gave the cabin an air of neglect, the once glossy dining table was covered in a film of gritty dust, its polish greasy in the half light, the carpets also seemed dull while lamp black stained the walls in several places and candle grease had pooled around the base of the sticks. Even the charts themselves had been coated with a faint miasma of dirt and Jack frowned as he caught himself wiping his fingers in distaste after moving them, wondering how he would feel about losing the comforts of another time, even for the Pearl. It was amazing what a man could get accustomed to, and how quickly he could do it too. A mental trail better not followed perhaps, not now and in the circumstances.

Putting the thought away he stared around the cabin, wondering where next to look for some indication of what the hell was going on his ship!

It was the cot that drew his attention now, for though it was in shadow he thought he could see the outline of a pile of clothes. Strange, for Barbossa was no more endowed with spare goods and chattels than he himself was; even at sea neither of them was in the habit of carrying more than a spare shirt or two, or pair of drawers. Yet the size of the pile suggested a it more than a little extra linen. Even if it were just that it was still odd for such items were always kept in the sea chest against the wall where they were unlikely to be swept out through the window in a sudden squall, or trampled under foot after a measure or two of rum.

He squinted through the gloom with narrowed eyes, no there was most definitely more than a spare shirt cluttering the counterpane. A frown drawing down his brows Jack edged closer to the cot. What ever was piled upon it was not cast carelessly on top but snuggled beneath the quilt, which made even less sense. Why would Barbossa cover his laundry so solicitously? Why would he be covering his laundry at all? Come to that what would he be laundering?

For a moment Jack just stood and studied the tumbled heap before giving a shrug and easing his pistol from his belt again. Hector might be a cur but he was a cunning one on occasion, even his return from the dead had not changed that. Jack edged his way around the foot of the cot and to the door one more time, reassuring himself again that no one was coming, before slipping back through the shadows to the side of the cot. There he leaned in towards the object of his curiosity.

This close he could make out the shape of man, and with a puzzled frown he stood back and leveled his pistol. No one would put a prisoner here in the cabin, nor an enemy neither, so just who the hell was Hector giving over his bed to? He eased the pistol hammer down and pushed the weapon into his sash again before leaning further over the figure while a hesitant finger edged forward and prodded a bulge in the cover around the heap until it was a little flatter. Was certainly male, the shape made that much clear, which made the obvious answer for the presence unlikely, given that Hector was strictly a ladies man, at least as far as those who had sailed with him knew. If anyone had ever have been given evidence to the contrary of that assumption then Jack assumed that he would have been one, for he had been a pretty enough lad. But he'd never had a sight of such a thing and the only obvious effect of thwarted lust on Barboss at sea had been a significant worsening of his temper and an increased tendency to seek private shadows.

No it was unlikely that he, whoever he was, had been brought here for amorous purposes. But who was he?

***

"It was ship I tells you." Pintel stared around the faces now staring at him. "I saw it as bold as brass, passin' us silent as a ghost."  
Raggetti nodded,  
"Saw it too. White it was, all glowing and pearly."  
"Naught but the mist." Marty scoffed. He too had seen the ship but he was not willing to admit to it for the moment.  
"Twere not I teel you. It were a ship, big ship."  
"Big as the Pearl seemed like." Raggetti agreed. "Under full canvas too and moving fast. Came like a shadow out of the mist then melted back into it as if it had never been there!"  
"Might be because it weren't there." Marty was still having none of it.  
"Eees right, it were a ship." The man called Bergholt had been lookout, and it had taken him some time to descend to the deck, but now he was there and he spoke with authority, "Navy ship is still a long ways off, this were a different one. Came out of the west she did, just like he said, big and white. At least that's how she seemed to me. Fast too. Came in close towards us then veered off again and disappeared back into the mist."

"Dutchman?" asked a voice hesitantly.  
Bergholt spat towards he deck,  
"We'd know afore now if she were. Anyways we're not sinking, nor be the Navy ship as far as I can see, so what wud bring the Dutchman?"  
Pintel exchanged a wary look with Raggetti,  
"Could be lot o' things." He said, "Not that I thinks it were the Dutchman." He shrugged, "Any ways she's gone now whoever she was."  
"Gone where?" Murtogg asked nervously,  
Pintel glowered at the question,  
"Search me. One minute she was there then she was gone, just like I told yer."  
"Bit worrying that," Mullroy chipped in, "I mean a ship comes out of no where, then goes no where, in a mist like this? Can't be right, now can it?"  
"Why not?" Pintel was belligerent again, "Ships sailin' all over the place, no sayin' that they can't be sailin' here, now is there?"  
Raggetti rubbed his nose thoughtfully,  
"'Tis true, but so is what Mr Mullroy here says, strange that she comes upon so quickly then goes so quickly too."  
"You thinks she was here deliberate like?"  
"Must be a possibility is all I'm sayin'."

"But what possibility?" Murtogg looked worried, "I mean what did she come here for. For us?"  
"Maybe so" Raggetti said solemnly,  
"But what for? I mean if she isn't the Dutchman then she'd not come to take our souls, so why was she here?"  
Marty went to the rail and stared into the mists,  
"Some 'tin odd about tis whole business," he said, "Navy can't catch us, mists comes out of nowheres, and then ships like shadows. Has to be some reason. If Captain Jack were here he'd know."  
"Barbossa might if we could wake him up."  
The mention of Barbossa brought a frown to Pintel's face,  
"Aye, but could be to do with Barbossa anyways, even with him not awake." He cast Raggetti a frowning look, "I'm thinking Mrs Fish."  
"Calypso?" Marty said, then shook his head, "Na, what would she be wantin' with a ship now that she nat be bound."  
"Ay that's true enough." agreed Raggeti, "Though it might be that she sent it."

The men looked at each other in concern.  
"So what might it be that she have sent it here to take from us?"  
"Or bring?" Murtogg offered in a small voice.  
Pintel and Raggetti exchanged a look then headed for the cabin with Marty close behind them

***

Jack tweaked the bedcover, ignoring the protest that the rank smell rising from the coverlet stirred in him, when had he become so nice in his requirements? Carefully he drew Elanor's little light from his pocket and directed it down towards the shadowed face. The bright little beam picked out a shirt collar that was strangely familiar and an even more familiar, and straggly, beard. His eyes wandered away towards the hands folded over the top of the quilt and he bit down on a curse as he recognised the gnarled and painted nails, no doubt about them. It were Hector himself lying there.

So that was why he had not heard his voice on deck he had been here asleep in the cabin all the time. Jack let the beam flicker upwards, and then gulped, his mouth twisting at what he saw. Not asleep for the familiar yellowed eyes were wide open, staring unseeing upwards just as they had on that pile of gold what seemed like years ago. Dead? Didn't seem likely, for all that glassy stare not when the quilt was drawn up to his chest but not across his face, anyways he couldn't see the crew putting a corpse here.

With a grimace of distaste Jack reached hesitantly forward and laid a reluctant finger against the man's neck. For a moment he held his breath then he felt the slow sluggish beat of the black heart within the chest. Alive then, but certainly not present.

A gusty sigh stirred his beard braids as he stared at the frozen expression, more bloody supernatural occurrences! Who was it this time? Calypso? One of her kin? Or William maybe? He looked down at the death mask face and decided not William, at least he hoped not, if it were then it was going wrong already and he had miscalculated, for he had been sure they had a year or two yet.

At this point he realised that the sounds from the deck had changed, and more importantly there were the sounds of footsteps heading towards the cabin. Jack smiled a sardonic smile and went and arranged himself carefully and casually in the captain's chair. He put his feet up on the table, ankles casually crossed and then he pulled the compass from his belt and cradled it very visibly in his hands. Seemed he was about to be reunited with his faithless crew.


	4. Chapter 4

**Voyages of the Dawn Chaser**

**Voyage Three - Lucifers Sword**

**Chapter 4 Reunion**

The Dawn Chaser left the mist as she had entered it, largely unseen. Ariadne kept a close watch on the Pearl and her pursuer but there was no sign that they had interest in the white ship as she slipped through the deepening haze, their attention, in as much as it could be deduced, still appeared to be focussed on each other. While that reassured Elanor her concerns about being seen were soon replaced by others and they were less easy to assuage; it was with these in mind that she sought out Mr Gibbs.

For the time since Jack had left he had stood sentinel at the stern as they sailed out into the sun and an empty ocean, and it was there she joined him, with a rum bottle in her hand.

She offered the bottle in silence and he took it the same way, eagerly sinking a deep measure without taking his eyes off the mists, then handling it back without a word. Though he nodded his thanks his eyes stayed fixed on the white line that marked the end of the mists and the start of the bright sunlight of the rest of the ocean; but the look on his face didn't reassure her, for his mouth was set in a thin line and his hands were clenched where they rested on the rail. The mists were fast being left behind, for the Chaser was carrying every possible inch of canvas and the wind remained on their side, quickly taking them away from that enveloping haze and from the Black Pearl and the man who had fallen behind by his own choice.

That it had been very much his own choice didn't make it easier for the two he had left, and she found herself wondering if he knew that, or if he would have believed it if he had been told. Jack seemed to have little belief in other people's concern for his well being, and perhaps that should not be thought surprising given his occupation and recent experience. But there was no doubting Gibbs concern,  
"Will he pull it off Mr Gibbs?" Elanor asked softly as she turned her head and joined him in staring at the fading mist line.  
For a moment he chewed at his lip then he shrugged wearily,  
"Well ma'am there be no denyin' that Barbossa's a crafty man, and he persuaded them to leave Jack behind after all. But Jack now, he's more than crafty, he's crazy. But crazy in a particular way if you take me meanin', and his craziness has saved more than one crew in the years I've known him, and every man on that ship knows it or should do. Not a legend for nothing is Jack Sparrow, aye and they knows that too. Just as they know by now that Barbossa has failed them," he cast her a sharp sideways look, "not acted in their best interests as you might say. Pirate crews. ....well... they'll not take to that kindly."  
She thought about that for a moment,  
"Maybe, but Jack will be one against many and Barbossa will not give up easily, now will he?"  
"No ma'am, he'll not do that, for he has coveted the Pearl from the moment he first saw her. Or so is said." His expression became grimmer still, "Bad man was Barbossa, though he'd seemed a mite different since he returned from the dead. Only to be expected I suppose. But changed or no he'll not be bested by Jack if he can do anything to prevent it."

"And can he?" She asked, "You know the pair of them better than I do."  
Gibbs frowned at the sea,  
"Jack's Jack, No sayin' what he can do if he puts his mind to it. If it were anyone else I'd say he'd be dead by now but Jack is different, he'll do it ma'am. Not like most men is Jack Sparrow, don't act like them and don't think like them."  
Elanor smiled, partisan or not at that moment she'd like to believe it but old habit was hard to break.  
"So the stories seem to say, but just how much should I believe them Mr Gibbs? I'm sure there is grain of truth in all of them, there usually is in a legend, but how much more than that?"  
There was a moment of silence then Gibbs smiled slightly,  
"Moren' you might think ma'am. True he's uncommonly lucky is Jack, but takes more than luck to survive so long when you have such enemies as Beckett and Norrington and Barbossa."  
She thought for a moment and looked back to the sea,  
"He'd say he makes his own luck no doubt."  
Gibbs grunted,  
"Aye he might at that, and that's be the truth of it some times. But there be more to it, he sees things other miss does Jack, and knows how to use them when needed. Has a knack of seein' the possibilities if you follow me."  
Elanor nodded her understanding,  
"Yes, I'd noticed. Where I come from we call it situational awareness, best thing you can have in a captain or a comrade, and bloody hard to teach to those who don't have it. He seems to know more than a bit of applied psychology too, I'd bet he doesn't often mistake his man, or woman come to that."  
Gibbs gave another grunt that could have been laughter,  
"Well, he's not always so good at reading the ladies ma'am. Gets slapped a fair few times."  
"Maybe, but I wonder how often the slap is unexpected?" she said thoughtfully.

Gibbs gave her a puzzled look but said nothing more on the subject and she returned to her original concern.

"You say he's lucky, but is he lucky enough for this?"  
The mist had disappeared from sight now and Gibbs turned away from the rail and gave her a knowing look,  
"Well that depends. Luck is never indifferent to Jack Sparrow ma'am, either his luck is good or it be terrible, but even then somehow he comes out on top more often than he looses." Gibbs flicked an eye brow at her, " O'course it helps a little that he has been known to keep some strange company, the sorts that a man wants on his side... if you take my meanin'."

Elanor leant back and crossed her arms with an amused but confidence inviting look,  
"I'm not sure that I do Mr Gibbs, but I do know enough of him to understand that what you think you see is not necessarily what you will get in the end."  
His look became more measuring, then nodded ruefully,  
" Aye, he's not an easy man to know, but it seems to me you've seen more of him than many who thought they knew him better." He gave her a sly smile, "helps that you are a mite tricky yerself perhaps, no offence ma'am."  
She returned his smile with one bright enough to do Jack justice,  
"None taken Mr Gibbs, none taken."  
That brought another nod,  
"Expected nothin' else ma'am." His eyes turned back twards the sea, "Others not always be so accommodating though."  
"And the crew of the Pearl, how accommodating will they be?"  
Trouble settled on Gibbs face again, but the words were brave.  
"Jack be Jack, he'll do it right enough ma'am you'll see. Aye, he'll not let Barbossa win again, take my word for it the Pearl will make the meeting and Jack will be at the helm."

Elanor wished she was as sure, though she knew that Jack had taken a little leverage as he put it with him, and by her help, but he would need to have the opportunity to use it and she was not sure that he would get that. But there seemed little else she could say in the face of Mr Gibbs hope, so she left it at that and went below to ask if Ariadne's scanners had spotted a corpse being thrown over board from the Pearl yet, and if they had whether it was possible to be certain whose remains it might be.

***

Raggetti was first through the cabin door and the sight that met his eyes brought him to an abrupt stop, so abrupt that Pintel collided with him hard enough to push him further into the cabin than he suddenly wanted to be. He struggled to halt his forward momentum, ill fitting shoes skidding on the scuffed boards, as behind him he heard Pintel draw breath to curse, then heard that same breath expire as a horrified squeak. One followed by another as his friend retreated quickly and collided with Marty.

That squeak was the only sound any of the three could summon up with as they stood and stared.

On the great table a branch of candles was burning in solitary splendour, and there was no sign of the pile of charts that had gathered dirt there for many days. Three pairs of eyes flickered around the cabin taking in the fact that Barbossa still lay on the bed and that all the other charts and papers had been pushed from view. For a moment they all stared at the silent Barbossa as if willing him to rise and deal with the coming confrontation; not that they really believed that he would for their erstwhile captain had slipped open eyed into another place some time ago. Without his intervention they couldn't avoid looking at the other occupant of the cabin for long and after a silent moment or two their reluctant gaze drifted back to the table.

Back to the figure sitting boldly and silently in the captain's chair.

The man was cast in shadow but there was enough light to see that he was casually sprawled as if at ease with the situation, legs propped on the table and eyes fixed on a knife blade being used to pare a ragged nail. Some detached part of Marty's brain noted that the hand and nail were unusually clean, and yet familiar.

The figure must have shifted slightly as they turned to stare at him, for suddenly the shadow lifted a little and the candlelight shone on a bent head, burnishing the copper tints in the long dark hair and picking out the shadow of heavy lashes on a gilded cheek. A red scarf bound the thick falls of hair back from the familiar face and the lowered eye was lined in kohl, but it didn't take those familiar accoutrements to identify the sitter, each of the three would have known him anywhere.

At that moment, as the silence stretched and wrapped itself around them, all three wished, in some degree, that their knowledge of him might be different.

Then the frozen moment was broken as Pintel shifted uncomfortably, risking a hurried look at Raggetti who still stared, round eyes and open mouthed, at the pool of candlelight and its occupant. No doubt of it, it were Jack Sparrow! Captain Jack. Calm as you please and bold as brass; compass on his knee and looking as if he was in the only place he could ever really belong, the captain's chair on the Black Pearl. Captain Jack who they had left behind at Tortuga to follow Barbossa's search for the fountain of youth. A leaving behind that had brought them nothing but bad luck, danger and disappointment he suddenly recalled.

The figure in the chair stayed as he was for a moment then slowly those dark eyes lifted from the knife blade, brows raised. All three crewmen drew a deep breath and moved slightly closer together, for the familiar face was set and unsmiling; a sight that was not unknown to his crew, but that was uncommon enough to be disturbing. Without a word he eased his feet further on to the table, narrowed eyes drifting over them in turn, the expression on the candle licked face becoming harder. The look was slow and steady but somehow a challenge.

Captain Jack it was most certainly, a man who was not likely to be best pleased with them. Captain Jack, a man who rarely gave way to temper but who was all the more dangerous for that restraint when the circumstances were right.

Pintel cleared his throat as if to speak but no words came. Yet the sliver of sound seemed to release something for now Jack's familiar smile slid across his lips, even though those equally familiar eyes remained narrowed and cold. The sight of that hard and measuring expression was not at all reassuring; each man shifted uneasily, dropping a hand towards the knife in his belt. Now was not a time to be caught unprepared or off guard, because each man knew that for all his general easiness and good nature Jack Sparrow was pirate enough when he needed to be, and he had never been soft, not even in the days before the mutiny. Not a bad man, and never hard or villainous enough for Barbossa's taste perhaps, but far from soft even then, and the years had not taught him to be any more so.

At the sight of the curling lip, enough to reveal the familiar glint of gold in his mouth, each of the three crew men suddenly found themselves remembering other things about Jack Sparrow than the manner of their leaving him; his stealing of the Dauntless for example, his killing of Barbossa, his besting of the Commodore and his many escapes from the noose. Most of all they found themselves recalling the tone of his voice as he gave the command to fire and send the Endeavour to the bottom and Beckett to his maker. If they or any who had heard it had ever doubted that Jack Sparrow was as much a pirate captain as Barbossa then that moment had proved them wrong, and this smile, a slow and shark-like baring of teeth, without any humour or shadow of self doubt, served to remind them of that.

Each one shuffled their feet and remained silent, yet each of them was aware of some growing feeling of relief at both the familiar face and the smile. For though each had their doubts about Jack's reaction to his second abandonment they also hoped that they were looking at the answer to their current problems. If they could just stay alive for the next few minutes he might yet bring them through, for whatever Jack Sparrow might think of them there was no doubt of his feeling for this ship. He would not see her at the bottom of the sea if he could stop it, nor would he tolerate her being in the hands of the navy while he still had breath to take her back, and so he was likely to hold back any murderous impulses he may feel towards her current crew. For the moment at least. After the days of running without a captain each man knew the value of those feelings. Barbossa might be stiff and silent but it seemed that, with a little luck, the Pearl had a captain again and even Jack Sparrow could not sail the Pearl alone. So he would need them alive whatever he might wish to do, for the newer crew had no knowledge of him and might waste time in argument if the older hands did not support him.

Though it would pay to tread very carefully and to keep an eye on him for a while.

Jack watched them in equal silence as if reading the thoughts chasing their tails through three desperate minds. It seemed that his careful planning might not be needed after all, there was no doubt that the men in front of him were greatly troubled and already disposed to be pleased to see him. Which was to be expected if Barbossa had been in his current state for any length of time. If he had been so corpse like for a week or more than it went a long way to explaining the Pearl's erratic behaviour. In which case the crew would know their case to be desperate, and that desperation would more than win the battle for him and as he had said before why fight when you could negotiate? Particularly when you were negotiating with what everyone wanted safely in your hand.

But it would be well to remember just who and what it was he was dealing with.

He shifted slightly and sent the knife in his hand shuddering into the table. Time to take a tight grip on the throat of the situation.

"So what have we here?" he said quietly allowing his smile to become more shark like despite the softness of his voice. "A trio of right royal wretches, it would seem. " he let a hint of open steel slip into his tone, "Mutineers to a man."  
There was no sneer in the words as there would have been if they come from Barbossa and yet the very matter of fact tone of it stung all the more. Pintel thrust out his chin, his chest swelling like an angry toad but his eyes sliding away from his abandoned captain, while Ragetti squirmed and looked at the floor in angry confusion. But Marty was not cowed and his eyes came up at that,  
"Nat mutiny! We did ya na harm, " he spat. "Barbossa had a right to be captain too, he claimed it be mutiny nat to sail with him."

Jack met Marty's angry eyes calmly and without a change of expressio. He was not surprised at the little man's words for he could hear Hector making just that case; could imagine him striding about the deck as he did it too, with coat flapping and scraggly beard bobbing, smiting an emphatic fist into his palm as he spoke and staring down each waverer with just the right hint of threat until it seemed the true and proper course to take, the only thing for them to do. Barbossa might not be a great orator but he had sailed with these men through grave danger and into the face of the unholy, it seemed likely even that self opinionated old goat would have learned enough of what they needed to hear to be able to say it.

'Couldn't deny that he had done some of the work for the treacherous bugger too', he thought sadly as he met Marty's stare, the crew had all seen himself in those terrible, uncertain days after the return from the locker when Jones curse was still upon him and his split selves drove him in different directions and fogged his mind with their arguing. No doubt Barbossa had made plenty of play of that while seeking the crew's acquiescence to his abandonment. Jack repressed a sigh, yes they has seen Captain Jack Sparrow in those dark days before he recovered himself, and no doubts it would have made many of them more than usually willing to listen to a man who claimed never to have misplaced his sanity, for sailors were superstitious creatures. With Mr Gibbs out of the situation and the promise of eternal youth to sway his listeners to.....

But they had left him behind, even those who had once been in Barbossa's brig, and that could not be forgotten, though he had come here already prepared to live with it.

Not that they knew that. He thought of the little bottle secreted in his pocket and hid a smile, no more than they knew just how dirty he had been prepared to fight to get the Pearl back. Seemed that events had once again intervened and there was no need for that now. No, he could forget his intended machinations, the men in front of him knew how badly they needed a captain and that he alone could save them from the mess Barbossa had embroiled them in. They would follow him wherever he would take them, for what other choice did they have?

Not that he was he willing to let them off the hook so easily.

Jack let his smile harden a little, his eyes never leaving Marty's,  
"Did he now? And how did he make that out pray? Pearl's my ship, she went to the locker with me and came back with me, how could he say different? Eh?"  
He got slowly to his feet and the others stepped back, a look of wary apprehension settling on their faces. Jack knew this was the last hurdle, and knew how to cross it too. Though he was not a large man nor was he as small as he could sometimes make himself appear, in fact he could appear quite a bit larger than many who had held him captive would have sworn he was. Now would seem to be a good time to be doing so.

Drawing himself up to his full height he squared his shoulders and tipped back his head, the movement showing up the muscle in his neck and chest. It swept his sword free of his coattails too, allowing the dim light to glint for a moment upon the newly polished hilt, (the wearing of said sword was one battle he had lost to Elanor and her ghost, and the blade had made the dive off the Chasers deck... surreptitiously).  
He balanced his weight on the balls of his feet, ready to move without warning, and still his eyes never left Marty's, knowing that the other two would like as not take their cue from the diminutive sailor.

Letting go the compass he placed his hands on his belt, the posture bringing his hand close to his sword hilt while highlighting the whipcord strength in his forearms and shoulders and widening his shadow where it hovered against the casement glass. His eyes narrowed as he measured the distance between him and them and in the casting of that look the mask was gone; the jovial trickster, the man of a thousand slippery words, careless caresses and sudden clandestine departures was gone. Now he looked what he was, and generally strove to hide, a man who'd fended off more swords than even William Turner had ever forged, who had escaped where others would have sworn it could not be done, who fought more than one raging storm heaved sea, and who had dared walk into hell on earth more than once for something that he wanted. This was a man who, in that moment, put aside all pretence and prevarication and looked considerably more formidable than most of his pursuers had ever been allowed to see him look, at least the ones who had lived to tell the stories of him. Captain Jack Sparrow had replaced Jack, and only those who had seen him would ever have understood the difference.

Marty, who had certainly met this man before, who had seen him hold a ship under full canvas against a raging wind, who had watched him fight the immortal Jones, sword against sword on a wet yard, was in no doubts that just now taking down Jack Sparrow might well require more than the three of them, even if they were so inclined.

Which, given their current difficulties, might not be the best thing to be.

Jack, his eyes still fixed on Marty, was taken by surprise as another voice, far less familiar, suddenly joined the conversation,  
"That's true enough."  
He felt a sudden lessening of tension in the three crew men and he let his eyes flit past them to the stocky figure in the doorway; he recognised the face despite the lack of red coat and wig, though he could not begin to imagine why he should be seeing it framed in his cabin doorway. Why did people he thought he had left behind keep appearing on his ship!

But what ever the reason he was here those words had sent a shiver of something through the other three. Jack recognised that shiver as he looked from face to face, fear, reluctance and the sudden burgeoning of hope. It was nearly done.

"Maybe the Pearl would rather have Captain Sparrow back."  
The face of this second new voice was peering hesitantly around the newcomer in the cabin doorway; it too was familiar but no less inexplicable than the first.

Jack frowned, what on earth was the bloody navy doing on the Pearl when the bloody navy was also chasing her? If you were going to put spies aboard then these were not the men even a half baked commander would chose to send, not if he recalled them correctly, and given the circumstances of their earlier acquaintance he was sure that he did, recall them correctly that was. More supernatural interference then? No way of knowing. Still these two seemed to be on the Pearl's side, which was good enough for him, given that it probably meant they were on his side. Or could soon be persuaded to be.

Slowly he relaxed, and when the others made no move to threaten him he sauntered across to stand beside the cot. Barbossa stared up with wide and glassy eyes, only the shallow rise and fall of his shirt betraying that any life remained trapped in the grimy chest beneath it. Time for a change of plan it seemed, no need to make waves if he didn't have to.

"Neither dead nor alive, " he mused, "certainly must have got on the wrong side of someone. " He gave a short laugh, "and I'd guess we all know who that is." He looked up at the five men around him with a wide golden grin, "Daft bugger should never have put her in chains, no ways she was going to forgive that, not given what Jones had done nor where she was when I first met her."

He looked back to Barbossa's frozen face, standing for a moment in silent contemplation, then he flicked a casual hand and smiled all the more brightly at the men around him.

"So which of you miscreants is going to tell their captain what in the ocean's name is going on here then?"

***

On the Intrepid the sense of being thwarted at all sides was growing. The crew were muttering to each other about the sudden mist and the disappearance of the Pearl whenever they though they were out of officer earshot, while the officers braced themselves for awkward questions from their captain.

But Hathaway seemed disinclined to blame anyone, accepting the set backs with a sangfroid that earned him many puzzled looks. Captain Hathaway was known to be a little on the odd side, but this level of forbearance was more than any one had looked for. Yet it was unsettling, as were his huddled consultations with Groves, for all the secrecy that was supposed to surround this venture there was not a man or boy aboard who did not know that Groves had been with the East India Company fleet when the Endeavour went down. Nor was there man or boy who hadn't heard some of the tales of those events, tales of sea goddesses, pirates returned from the dead and unearthly storms. As the days had passed so the stories had grown in number and fancy and now more than one man was sure that no human person was captaining the ship they followed. While many of the officers laughed at the idea they felt the uncertainty and threatened punishment if the stories were repeated, but even they found them less easy to dismiss when in the darkness below decks where the candles seemed to flicker in unfelt draughts. Even the officers felt a sinking feeling in the pit of their stomach when they saw Hathaway call for Groves, for if the captain felt the need to consult the lieutenant, then was it not because they were facing those same forces?

Yet so far there had been no sign of them, just a ship they couldn't catch and a mist that was where it shouldn't be. If the sea goddess was interesting herself in their pursuit of the Black Pearl then so far she had done little more than watch.

For hours they had sat at anchor watching the mist shimmer and shift on the horizon. The black ship remained where she was too, like the navy the pirates were unwilling to venture far when so little of the ocean could be seen. The tension crackled around the decks, officers watching the crew and the ocean alike with narrowed eyes and thinned lips. Only the captain seemed unaffected by the strange atmosphere enveloping them.

Then suddenly there was a call from above, a call that caused Groves to lean out across the rail and had Hathaway reaching for his glass. After a minute or two of staring towards the pirate Hathaway lowered his glass and said something to Groves before starting down the deck calling the orders to prepare to get underway as he came. Anxious eyes turned towards the black sailed ship and men hurried to their stations as they realised she was already under way, changing canvas as she went.

"What is she about Sir?" Lieutenant Brovain asked as Hathaway came to stand at the helm.

"I'm not sure, but I'd wager something has, for unless I'm much mistaken this mist is thinning."

***

Calypso had little difficulty in reading the fears of those aboard the Intrepid and even less the worries of the crew of the Pearl. Though she smiled a little at them she contented herself with that. The Lady standing at her side felt her change of mood and smiled her own secret smile, knowing that memory of being human was fading from Calypso's mind, that past and future and all that went with it were disappearing from her ken as the ways and habit of the immortals again became familiar to her. Men and their affairs would cease to matter to her, only Jack Sparrow would continue to be of interest, and that spoke volumes about the man, volumes that the lady had already read long ago. She tipped her head and looked back towards the fleeing ship with a smile

***

Jack Sparrow was alone at the helm of the Black Pearl, a smile as wide as the horizon dancing on his lips and a feeling of satisfaction in his heart. Though the smells of the ship were more intrusive than they would once have been, and the stink of the crew enough for him to want them well down wind of him, he knew that he was home. Soon he would stop noticing the..... inconveniences, though he would miss hot water and soap for himself. He wriggled as something bit his wrist, then sighed as he rubbed the bite, the little animals may be harder to get used to again, but he'd come prepared for that. No matter anyway, for they were making good speed and soon the Chaser's amenities would be available again, and he would still have the Pearl, a nigh on perfect situation to his mind.

Before he met up with Elanor again he would need to find out exactly what had been going on. He'd not given the men time to continue their explanations of Barbossa's state when he had first confronted them, knowing there would be time enough for that. More to the point his hands had itched to feel the Pearl's wheel beneath his fingers once again, and he was not willing to delay scratching that itch while the crew meandered their way through whatever sob story they were planning on regaling him with.

So he had pushed their babbling aside with a curt 'later', and set about getting his beloved ship away from her pursuers; and himself of course. He couldn't let the navy catch him, he knew that, but with the Pearl beneath his feet there was a little chance of that as their had been on the Chaser. Thinking of which caused him a fission of worry, as if the Pearl might know of it and be offended. So he had spent the first moments of his time at the wheel stroking the sun baked and sweat oiled timber and purring his pleasure at being home. Silently crooning his faith in her fleetness and fortitude before mentioning the ship from the future, naming her as the Pearl's white sister and friend in a hostile world. Only when he was sure that the Pearl seemed happy with his return and un-offended by his plans did he send the men aloft and give the order to get underway.

As the black canvas filled with a growing breeze Jack pulled out his compass and set his course for the planned rendezvous.


	5. Chapter 5

**Voyages of the Dawn Chaser**

**Voyage Three - Lucifers Sword**

**Chapter 5 Return to Tortuga**

The Dawn Chaser made good time to what Gibbs had started to describe as 'home,' the small bay beside Polly's homestead. The wind had stayed with them, and though a couple of merchants and a naval vessel drifted had across the outer edge of the scanners nothing had come any closer to them than that for the whole voyage. Which had given them more time to think about what they were leaving behind than perhaps either of them had wanted, certainly given Ariadne's lack of news about Jack. No corpse overboard she had said, but that didn't mean that Jack wasn't in irons in the brig, or worse.

Neither of them had repeated their concerns for Jack's safety but each knew of the other ones worry. Gibbs seemed to wear a perpetual frown while Elanor was aware that every muscle in her neck and shoulders was tight as a harp string, and that her sleep was disturbed by vague dreams of things gone wrong. But there was nothing that could be done about it now, they had to put up with the worry until the Black Pearl arrived with him at the helm, or until she was so late that they knew he was not coming.

Neither of them would admit, even to themselves, the possibility that she would come without him.

For Elanor the waiting had an added edge of unfamiliarity, she debated long and hard about giving Jack a means of contacting them ahead of his arrival here but in the end had decided against it. Caution had to be her watchword, particularly where Jack was concerned. The less of a footprint she left here the better and if Jack were not successful then a useful piece of technology was lost, or worse still in undesirable, if uncomprehending, hands. Even if he were successful (please God, she thought) then there was no certainty that he would keep the device hidden; Jack was a clever man, she had come to that conclusion soon after meeting him, but he was of his time and though his cleverness meant that he didn't fear them he had a child's delight in her 'clever toys'. In his exuberance he might not be able to resist the opportunity to play with such a toy when he shouldn't.

They dropped anchor as the sun was sinking in the west, and Gibbs took the long boat and headed to land with more alacrity than he might once have done. He didn't fear leaving her on her own any more, knowing that she and her ship could take care of themselves, and trusting that she would go no where else until there was news of the Pearl. Elanor watched him go, unsure of whether she was glad to be alone or not, she was conscious of being uneasy, and not only with fear for Jack.

As she watched the long boat, Mr Gibbs steady pull of the oars was taking it quickly across the bay, she wondered what would happen if Jack did make it back here at the helm of his Pearl. What madness would he want to be about next and could she stand back and just let him get on with it? If she didn't join him in whatever it was then what was she to do? There was no sign of the dimension door opening again, to home or anywhere else, not that she was sure that she would know the difference, so she was left hanging on the horns of the same dilemma, what for pity's sake was she to do here? She'd go mad if she had no purpose or occupation. Jack would be quick to make use of that fact, and she couldn't honestly see how she and Ariadne could leave him here and continue to sail without his experience of this world. Another inconvenient fact that Jack was well aware of and, no doubt, already factoring into his plans.

As she watched Mr Gibbs approach the shore she admitted that she had no choice, she had to stick with Jack until she found a way to leave this world. Which meant she needed to be prepared for whatever the mad pirate was likely to have in mind. That meant she needed to tap more of Mr Gibbs knowledge of him, preferably while the man himself was safely elsewhere. But what exactly did she need to know and how would she sift the wheat from the chaff of Gibbs story telling? As he finished dragging the boat up the sands and began the ascent of the cliff path to the comfort of Polly's hospitality she turned away and went to seek Ariadne's advice.

In the golden light of the setting sun The Lady watched and smiled her satisfaction.

***

"Right, out with it! What the bloody hell has been going on here?"

Jack had found what he thought of as the brotherhood of four idiots huddled together in the stern, sharing the contents of a squat green bottle that didn't smell to be rum. By the stench of it he didn't want to know what it did contain either. Not that the stink of them was any better, and not for the first time since he came aboard he wondered why he had never noticed it before, a thought followed quickly by a hope that he stopped noticing it again, soon. The smell of the ship no longer seemed so strange, though he had to admit that the aroma in parts of her was less ambrosial than he recalled, but the smell of unwashed human bodies still pricked his nostrils more than he liked. He recalled telling Elizabeth that such things were trifles, here on this very deck, not many yards from where he sat now, but it had to be admitted they were less .. trifles. than they had seemed to be back then.

Elizabeth. Another problem he was going to have to deal with sooner rather than later. He knew that he shouldn't be surprised at the need for he had rarely met a wench who was more of a problem than that one. Not that this instance of her problemship was of her making, not if he were honest. No it had been his hand that had put the knife into William's and steered it to stabbing the heart, so it fell to him to make sure there were no undesirable... eventualities. arising from that generous act.

But that was for later, now he needed to resolve the matter of Barbossa, for some strange reluctance was keeping him from tipping the old rogue overboard as he deserved. He'd considered doing it several times, but the very helplessness of his long time enemy as he lay there seemed to render him powerless to exact any form of revenge at all. He couldn't understand it but every time he steeled himself to be rid of the problem he found some reason not to go and accomplish it. He'd even left the old bastard on the bunk, arguing with himself that he didn't want to sleep in it anyway, not until he'd dealt with the biting creatures that no doubt infested it. Having only managed to secret a small amount of Elanor's wondrous potions about his person before leaving the Chaser it made sense to keep his distance from them and their teeth.

So instead of tossing him overboard he had allowed the crew to go on doing as they had been doing in the days since Barbossa fell into this state. At least it was keeping the man alive without waking him up to be a nuisance. But matters could not continue in that way indefinitely and he needed to know what had happened if he was to decide what to do about it.

So he had sought these four and Marty out at the first opportune moment.

With a casual frown around the ring of suddenly raised and widened eyes he settled himself down on a hatch cover and carefully tucked the rum bottle into the crook of his arm like a treasured child.  
"Out with it!" he snapped again.  
"With what?" The thinner of the two ex marines asked in apparent confusion.  
"I think the captain wants to know about Mr Barbossa," his friend replied.  
Jack's eyebrows rose towards his scarf, and his voice rose with disapproval,  
"MR Barbossa?"  
"Well if you are captain, " the man saw Jack's frown deepen and hurried on, "Which you no doubts are. Then he can't be captain too."  
Jack gave a sceptical sniff, but he could hardly argue the point given that he was saying that Barbossa had no right to be captain. He shrugged an impatient shoulder,  
"All right, but you can leave out the Mr in future, plain Barbossa will do."

The others looked uncomfortable but said nothing, except Marty, 'who is not a fool' Jack reminded himself.

The little man met Jack's eyes squarely and spoke up without hesitation.  
"Began to act strange just after we left Tortuga. Though lookin' back at it he'd nat been hisself for some time afore that."  
Jack took a pull of his rum and squinted across at Marty,  
"Noticed that," he grunted as he swallowed the liquor. "So what was it that happened after your nefarious and unwise desertion of me good self?"  
Marty shrugged ignoring the implication,  
"Nat sure, he'd become strange, well stranger, over the days, alwaas feeding the monkey nuts, nat sure where they come from cas we took none ashore at Tortuga. Spent hours at the helm or in the cabin, talking to hisself and feedin' the monkey." His mouth turned down and he shook his head,  
" Didn't take much interest in the ship nor the crew once we left Tortuga."

"That came after." Raggetti disagreed, "First thing was the matter with his hand." He looked around him, "Remember?" he looked back towards Jack and leant in a little as if not wanting to be heard,  
" He'd stand at the rail and stare at his hand then suddenly put it behind his back like he didn't want to see it. Go pale he would, as if it weren't his hand he were seeing but something he didn't want to be there."  
"Aye that's true," Marty agreed, "like there were something wrong with it and he couldn't bear to see, but couldn't stop lookin'. Pretended he didn't, would swear and curse at the man who he thought had seen it, but 'tis right enough that we all saw him."  
Jack took another swallow of rum and stared up at the topsail in thought.  
"So first he started seein' things did he?" he said quietly.  
He repressed a shudder as he recalled his own visions in the locker, memories that he rarely indulged in the light of day but that still haunted him in the dark. For a moment he could almost feel sympathy for Barbossa.. almost ..... for there was no saying what the man had been seeing. He chewed on his lip as he thought about the possibilities, none of which were pleasant.

With another shiver of an inner chill he turned his mind back to the present and its' concerns. He squinted at Marty,  
"Then came the strange behaviour with the monkey you say? But he was always mighty fond of the little devil so maybe not so strange."  
Raggetti shook his head, his mouth drooping in something like despair,  
"You didn't see him captain, croonin' to it he was, like it were a babe and he a doting father. Never thought to hear such words from his mouth, nor see such a look upon his face neither. Right disconcerting it were."  
"Thought of Barbossa as a father is pretty strange whatever the offspring!" Jack said with a grimace of distaste, "but I'll grant that sort of conduct to be most unlike himself. What after that?"  
"T'were the voices we think." Pintel took up the story, "seemed like he could hear people that weren't there." He leaned closer to Jack and dropped his voice as if afraid of his own words, "Sometimes he seemed to jump as if someone had come behind him and whispered in his ear. An' then sometimes he would turn around suddenly and glare at everyone in sight as if someone had called to him. Right odd he were and that's the truth."  
Raggetti nodded his agreement.  
"Weird it was. Then it got worse, began to answer questions that no one had asked. " He shook his head solemnly, "Got so that if you spoke to him you didn't know if it were you he was answerin' or someone not there."

Jack thought about that in silence while the others watched him as carefully as they might watch a hunting shark. He smiled inwardly to himself because he knew very well what they were feeling; while there was considerable relief in laying the matter before their captain each man was also worried that he might conclude that he wanted no part of such events. Which might mean he would throw Barbossa overboard, a worry for their superstitious souls, or leave them with no captain again, or maybe even leave them and Barbossa marooned on some spit of land, depending on how much malice he was still feeling about being left behind.

Jack, however, had put thoughts of that particular piece of disloyalty aside for the moment at least, considering it as having no further point, but he didn't expect them to understand that. It was one of the greatest differences between him and them and he knew it, the ability to move on and deal with the here and now without constant reference to things that were done and so not capable of change.  
'Elanor now, she would understand' he thought and for a moment he was surprised by a pang of something close to regret at the loss of her company; he was also aware of a faint shadow of worry at the feeling.

"But I'm reckoning that it didn't end there," he said eventually, raising the bottle to his lips again, "more than voices took him wherever it is that he is now."  
Marty shrugged,  
"Did nat. Abaat the time the navy first sighted us, moren a se'enight ago now, he started seein' people as well as hearin'. At least that's how it seemed to the crew."  
"Aye," Raggetti nodded, "Must have. Began giving orders to people who weren't there he did. Was like he was in this world and another one all at the same time. A world where there were other people, ones as real as to him as the ship were." He shook his head sombrely, "Most worrying it is when you are in the middle of a battle to have the captain givin' the order to fire to a man who isn't on board."  
Jack gave a mirthless smile; suddenly the Pearl's strange behaviour wasn't so strange. Teach them to leave him behind!  
"Can see that it might be at that," he said agreeably.  
The larger of the two marines spoke for the first time,  
"In the end it was as if he didn't see us at all sir. Like the ship was crewed by ghosts and we were invisible. It got so that if we spoke to him he didn't answer."  
His friend nodded vigorously,  
"Looked straight through you as if you weren't there at all in the end. Whatever he were seeing it became more real to him than we were."

Jack looked around at the unexpectedly earnest faces, seeing the worry and fear stamped there,  
'Liars to a man,' he thought bitterly, 'but not this time.' Which was troubling, for there could be no denying that the story, if true, smacked of a somewhat goddessy humour. Not finished with Barbossa it seemed, maybe not with any of them. So what was she up to? Revenge for the brig and chain, or something else? Something more... current? Either way it seemed that his life was not to be relieved of supernatural interferences just yet. As if a ship from the future wasn't strange enough for him to have to deal with!

Nor did he know the whole of it he'd bet. Tia Dalma had always been good at keeping secrets. Not that this lot had told him the sum of the matter either,  
"Hmm," he muttered as he got to his feet and turned to stare out at the sea, "but how did he end up in the cabin in his current dislocated state? Tell me that."  
Behind him the men exchanged hurried glances,  
"Well you see it were like this capt'n." Pintel's voice took on the wheedling tone that betrayed either a lie or some action he thought Jack might take exception to, "Were when the navy were nearly on us and Barbossa had taken hisself down to the cabin leavin' us without orders. We went to see him to ask that he come back on deck."  
Jack suppressed a smile knowing that there would have been more to it than that, much more. The possibility had always been a danger for Barbossa of course, that mutiny became a habit, and he remembered that Pintel had made a half-hearted stand for command of the Pearl once before. With Barbossa in such straits maybe he had decided to make a more serious claim to the captaincy. No they certainly wouldn't want to tell him that! But that plan couldn't have succeeded given that he was still here and the Pearl was in one piece, so what had happened?

Behind him the others were exchanging furtive looks and nudges, none of them wishing to be the one to tell the rest but knowing that someone had to, Captain Jack was not a man you could side track, not when he was in pursuit, and they all knew it. Like a barnacle on a rock he was, stick to it come whatever tide.  
"Found him arguing with someone that wasn't there we did." It was Raggetti who continued in the end. "We tried to make him listen but it were like we weren't there. Mr Murtogg and Mr Mullroy here caught hold of him, just tryin' to make him listen to us like, but he shook them off and drew his sword, ragin' he was that he'd be master of his own fate and no one, dead or alive, would stop him. He lunged and caught Mr Mullroy a glancing slash. Nothin' serious, just a scratch really, but when he saw the blood flowin; he went queer."  
Pintel nodded,  
"Aye terrible to see it were, him fallin' to his knees and a'wailin' about not having meant it, not any of it, that he'd not known. Pleading to be told what he could do to put it right he were." He gave Jack a sorrowful look, "Were hard to see Cap'n, were so unlike him."  
"Like he had lost himself. Laid bare his soul." Ragetti agreed wide-eyed and serious. He shuddered, "like he was facing the very judgement of God it were. Painful to see,"  
The words were quiet and heavy and for some reason Jack didn't doubt the sincerity of them. He reflected that Raggetti had become somewhat strange himself since the lifting of the curse.

"Could no nothing with him." Marty took up the story, "he just knelt there, rocking from side to side and pleading to be told how to make it right over and over again with his eyes tight shut. We got him up in the end and onto the cot and he opened his eyes then but just lay there talking to people who weren't there and askin' to be forgiven. Just kept sayin' forgive me, over and over."  
The picture that Marty's calmly dispassionate words painted was not a comfortable one.  
"And then." Jack asked quietly, "Did you leave him or stay?"  
They exchanged shamefaced looks before Pintel spoke slowly,  
"Ragetti and me. ....well we stayed for a while. Right weird it were too, bein' there with him pleading and a'cryin. His voice got quieter and quieter till it were no mor'en a whisper see, eirie it were to hear. But the navy was on our heels and getting closer, and suddenly it were all men to stations and so we left him a layin' there and went back on decks. Weren't nothing else we could do for him after all and getting sunk would not have improved matters."  
Marty nodded  
"Tat be true cap'n, nothing more we could do for him when he didn't know we be there. We laaast the navy that time, though truth be that it were more by luck of the seas than ought else. But by then he was like his now. Hasn't changed since. Just lies there and stares into nothing."

Story told they sat back and watched Jack as he returned to staring out to sea. What would he do now? Toss Barbossa over the side and strand them somewhere perhaps? Didn't seem likely, that was not Captain Jack's way at all. But then again he had been dead himself hadn't he? Had been in the locker and they had all seen what that had done to him. Maybe he would have some fellow feelin with Barbossa after all, maybe he would think that they should have done more? If so no saying what he might do to them. But then again he had forgive Miss Swann her killin' of him, or so it had seemed, which, by any ones reckoning, was a most un-pirate like thing to do, downright unmanly come to that. So who could say what he might be thinking?

Perhaps he would decide to wash his hands of them and go back to wherever he had been before he came back to the Pearl, and they still didn't know where that was.

What Jack was actually thinking was something they couldn't begin to anticipate,  
'If you want to know about ghosts then best ask one,' was the thought running through his head, that and ' Daft buggers all of them. No point in asking them for explanations.' Rapidly followed by 'I'd kill for some sensible company to talk this through with at this moment in time. When did I start to want that?'

Which made it fortunate, did it not, that he was going to be able to fulfil those wishes sooner rather than later. Without a word he left the little huddle and strode off to the helm to check his bearings. Marty was the only one to follow him, arriving as he snapped the compass shut,  
"Where we headin' cap'n?" There was only a hint of apprehension in his voice.  
Jack looked down and met the anxious but appraising eyes with a wide smile,  
"Tortuga."

***

The sun was just rising as the Black Pearl approached the headland that marked the outer edge of Polly's bay. Jack satisfied himself that the spot was safe enough for the moment and gave the order to drop anchor.

Not seeking berth at the port had caused a few grumbles amongst the crew, but some remaining wariness of their captain, and more than a little curiosity, had stilled the tongues when Jack had informed the crew they had a rendezvous to keep. The assurance that they would be provided with suitable refreshment on the morn had also helped of course.

Not that anyone was risking much in the way of rebellion for the moment. The crew had been subdued for most of the voyage in fact, obeying orders with alacrity and avoiding their captain when they could. Jack allowed them their uncertainties knowing that the four idiots would have told every man of them the stories of his own sojourn beyond death's veil, and of his return and its outcome. That would be enough to keep such a superstitious lot at a distance, and the only cure for that was time and familiarity. With Barbossa still silent and glassy eyed in the cabin, and the navy stalking the seas in search of them, their need of a captain was greater than their need of a drink.

Just be sure he had taken care to be at his most captain like since his return, hollering orders in a manner that even Barbossa could have found no fault with, and working on the maps when not at the helm. Reminding them what he was so they didn't get too caught up with who he was, not his usual way ofcourse but there would be plenty of time for that later. He'd laid off the rum too, been as sober as judge in fact, though he took care to join the crew when they took their ease, rum bottle in hand, listening to the stories and adding a few of his own. While he was around they were careful enough about what they said but he was in little doubt that wilder tales were swapped in his absence.

He could only hope that those few who knew of it had had the sense to keep mum on the subject of the Flying Dutchman and her current captain, that was one story he certainly didn't want getting round. Most of those who had crewed the Pearl during the battle, and survived it, had returned to the East with their Pirate Lords or remained at Shipwreck. The Pirate Lords themselves, those who knew anything of the matter, and most did not, were sworn to secrecy on pain of the Keeper's displeasure and the likely rage of Calypso should they speak of it. The latter possibility had been both raised and stressed by Jack himself in the days of carousing after the victory, when the memory of said rage was still vivid. Though the truth was that fear of his father was probably enough to keep most of them in line until such time as the memory of the event faded into legend.

At least that was what he had hoped, but the recent pursuit of his good self by the authorities suggested that matters were not to be resolved so easily. The worry was that the Dutchman and her captain might have become a matter of politics. Bloody politics! God alone knew what reefs they were heading for if that was indeed the case! Might take more than him to steer them through it, which was a most uncomfortable admission to have to make, even to himself.

Now he was about to add another page to his legend and give his crew something else to think about.

As the sky darkened he ordered Barbossa to be placed in the longboat and the boat lowered, ignoring the startled looks he descended the sea ladder alone and began the pull around the headland to the bay beyond.

The surge of relief he felt at seeing the white ship sitting calmly at anchor came as a surprise for he had not thought he had any doubts, though he knew that his plans depended upon her. Had he really expected her captain to cut and run? Would it have mattered so much if she had, given that she of all people could not betray him?

But he was relieved to see her, and the awareness of it caused him to give himself a most serious reprimand as he rowed easily towards the waiting ship. Had never relied on anyone but himself since the day they put the brand on his wrist, now had he? This was not the moment to depart from that practice. He had seen where relying others, even a little bit, could get him had he not? Dead, it got him dead. Or nearly dead in William's case, for it was only luck that oar hadn't broken his neck, and only the fact that he was Captain Jack Sparrow had kept him alive when the pirates found him wandering alone and dazed. No thanks to William at all, for the boy had been quick enough to let him fall behind while he made off with his treasure. No pirate could have made off with a haul faster than the lad had.  
'Fair play to him though' Jack reminded himself, 'was only what was right by him, but it showed did it not?'  
For a man with the brand on his wrist there was no one to rely upon, the so-called honest man, or woman, would make use of you while it suited then hand you over to the hangman when it didn't. A wise pirate did no less. Trusting now, that was for fools, and he was not a fool.

But then why had he simply not tossed Barbossa into the sea? Why then this sense of relief? He muttered angrily at himself and pushed the thought away, concentrating on the pull of the oars against the water and the shrinking distance to the other ship. Sooner he could send Gibbs back with the longboat the better he reflected, the crew were unlikely to abandon him again, not as this time they would be abandoning both their possible captains, but he couldn't be totally sure. Gibbs would know how to keep them in line while Jack sorted out this matter of Barbossa.

'Passing on the responsibility you mean.' Chided a little voice in the back of his head. He snarled at the idea but it refused to go away and he rolled his eyes in frustration at the waywardness of his own thoughts, then he pulled himself up quickly reminding himself that in that direction lurked the return of madness.  
'Seeking out informed opinion, as any sensible man would,' he reassured himself, 'no disgrace in that. Can't ask her to visit the Pearl when she is so determined not to be seen.' He sighed to himself, 'After their experiences with Elizabeth Swann couldn't be sure how the crew would react to her anyways, not while they are still so uncertain of their captain. No, better they know as little as possible of her for the moment. Mr Gibbs would tell them what they needed to know.  
'Sure that is a good idea are you? ' The little voice asked again. Jack thought of the tales that Gibbs could spin about the lady captain and grinned, but the men were used to Gibbs and would take what he said in the same manner as they took his other stories. No, as long as he didn't let them see her just yet it would be fine. Besides he had other reasons for wishing to keep his crew as uninformed about the Dawn Chaser and her captain as possible.

Jack cast another look at the frozen face of the man laid out in the boat and shivered, hoping he would make the journey back alone, for he'd be glad to get the man off the Pearl for more reasons than he cared to examine.

As the longboat knocked against the side of the Chaser Jack smothered all doubts and composed his face into a bright and confident smile, he looked up at Elanor with a brash but confiding show of confidence.  
"Got something here that might interest you."

***

"So what are you going to do Jack? Leave him like this? And where exactly are you going to leave him? Here? Well I understand why you want him off the Pearl for a while but he can't stay here indefinitely. Makes sense that we monitor him for a day or so but no more than that, and I mean that. So what then?"

They were sitting at the helm, breakfast at the side of them, while Barbossa had been laid out on the bed that he found he still thought of as 'his'. When he had protested she had pointed out that unless he intended to take the man back to the Pearl they had to put him somewhere and there were no other cabins. Jack had grimaced at that and waved a hand in reluctant acceptance then sought out hot water as consolation. Now with his hair drying in the sun and his belly full he was pretty much resigned to it.

But at that challenge he shrugged a shoulder in irritation, though his expression told her that he was well prepared for what she was going to say, in fact that he had been telling himself much the same for a while. She hitched her hip on the chart table and crossed her arms,  
"Are you planning on keeping him like this and watching him starve to death trapped in his own locker. Because that is what you would be doing given that we can't feed him. Or are you going to dump him somewhere on this shore and let him die more quickly of exposure and sunburn, or were you planning on tipping him overboard to drown?"  
She sighed as he didn't reply,  
"If you plan on killing him why bring him here? Curiosity or malice? I confess I hadn't thought you a cold blooded killer of the helpless Jack, am I wrong about that?"

That remark earned a sideways look that was a mix of annoyance, anger and something close to fear.  
"He stole my ship, and not just once!"  
"Well you shot him for the first time and look where that ended up, are you going to do the same again?" She paused for a moment then smiled slightly, "and live with the act forever?"  
Jack sighed, he shoulders sagging and his mouth drooping,  
"Think I don't know? So what do you suggest I do?"  
She shrugged,  
"How am I supposed to know? All this supernatural stuff is new to me. Find out what has happened and what the options are I suppose, assuming that's possible. Is there anyone who might know what this is all about?"  
That brought an even deeper drop of his shoulders and a weary sigh,  
"There was once but she is gone to other......duties."  
"Oh. Anyone else?"  
Jack shuffled his feet a little frowning at the deck, but she sensed that he had always known where they were headed, from the moment he had seen the state of the man he had brought aboard. There was resignation in very line of him and weary acceptance in the slump of his shoulders,  
"Maybe. If I chose to ask."  
Elanor gave a rueful smile,  
"One of those eh?"

Jack gave a mirthless laugh then looked up to meet her eyes with sombre face.  
"Yes luv, most definitely one of those."


	6. Chapter 6

**Voyages of the Dawn Chaser**

**Voyage Three - Lucifers Sword**

**Chapter 6 Back into Hell**

It was three days later that the Black Pearl sailed out to sea again. During that time the crew had indulged in a day and night of drunken relaxation, then nursed their hangovers for a further day, all under the command of Mr Gibbs and with no word from their captain. The third day they spent in hard labour, chivvied by Gibbs again, as the ship was re-provisioned with goods that appeared on the shore as if from nowhere.

Of Jack there was still no sign.

But as the sun sank on that third day their wandering captain returned. No one asked him where he had been, though Gibbs seemed to know, but they had seen the longboat appear around the headland as the red rays of sunset buried their faces in a claret coloured sea, so he had been somewhere other than Polly's farm. But the truth was that for the moment they didn't care, and as he appeared they had all breathed a silent sigh of relief.

Not that he seemed to be in joyous mood himself, wherever he had been it seemed that he had returned with no less a load on his shoulders than he had left them with. Maybe no surprise there though, given that Barbossa had been propped up in the stern of the longboat as frozen and silent as when the captain had rowed away.

But Jack now had the air of a man with an unpleasant but unavoidable duty to perform, an observation that gave no one any pleasure. He'd been grim faced and uncommunicative as he taken Gibbs offered hand and clambered aboard, and other than to command that the silent Barbossa be placed back in the cabin, and issue the order to prepare to hoist anchor, he had remained silent as they made ready to sail. Gibbs had cast him an anxious look, but he too said nothing, at least not when anyone else was in earshot. Raggetti, though, knew that he had tackled Jack the once, for he had seen the captain hunch a shoulder and mutter something. Those few words had been enough to bring a look of resigned horror to Gibbs face, and a half protest that the captain forestalled with an impatiently raised hand before he turned away. Gibbs had cast him one more worried look then shrugged and bustled about overseeing the manhandling of their second captain back to the cabin. Raggetti reflected on the short exchange and decided that he didn't like that look of it at all, then he hurried off to find Pintel.

Mr Gibbs been back on deck as they headed for open waters though, hollering orders as Cotton took the helm. Jack Sparrow had positioned himself at the stern, staring out at the darkening sea behind them with a deep crease between his brows and teeth worried lips. Raggetti, tying off lines with Pintel, cast as many looks in his direction as he could without being noticed, wondering what it was that the man was watching for. No one else seemed concerned. So he was the only one to see the sudden relaxing of his captain's shoulders as a blur of white appeared out of the bay beyond the headland. Whatever it was that had fallen in behind them Captain Jack was very pleased to see it, and as he turned away his smile was wide and the swagger was back in his walk.  
'Yes, very satisfied he had looked at that moment' Raggetti thought and wondered what it was that Captain Jack had looked for so anxiously before returning to his tasks.

The rest of the crew were not so happy when events became clear however. The blur of white proved to be a ship, big as the Pearl and fast and fearsome looking in some strange way, and flying no flag they recognised. Raggeti and Pintel had exchanged knowing looks, for they had seen this white ship before, then they caught their captain's eye and saw suspicion bloom there, so they ducked their heads and said nothing. The white ship had taken up a line behind them, never coming closer but never falling back either, wherever they were going it didn't seem that they were going alone.

In lieu of word from their captain, who seemed disinclined to tell anyone anything soon, the men turned to Mr Gibbs for reassurance; but even from him they got precious little joy.  
"Now lads there be naught to fear," he'd rumbled as they had surrounded him demanding answers. "Friend of Jack's it be and a powerful fine ally in a scrap is all you need to know. Helped me and Jack out in a spot of bother in Tortuga her captain did, and has agreed to lend a hand in the business we be about."  
"Which be what?" Pintel demanded.  
Gibbs sighed and cast a quick look around him, but Jack was no where to be seen,  
"Goin' to see an old acquaintance of Jack's. One who might know what ails Barbossa. " He looked at the men around him and nodded sagely,  
"Believe me when I tells you that this person be best approached with force of numbers on your side."  
"Another one then?" Raggetti asked nervously.  
"Another one what?" Gibbs played confused not really wanting to tell them.  
"Another like the sea witch, Calypso I means."  
Gibbs sighed, there were times when Ragetti was not a fool, and, damn the man, usually when you wanted him to be. Nothing for it now though, so he sighed and gave a resigned smile,  
"Aye, well. I'd not be sure o' that," he said carefully, "But a witch o' some sorts to be sure."  
"Another one!" Pintel growled, "Where'd he find them all, tell me that?"  
Gibbs just shrugged, he'd wondered the same but he'd not admit that to the crew,  
"He's Jack Sparrow. Don't really need any more excuse than that. Now do it?"  
That had been the end of the conversation for Jack had caught sight of them and had sauntered down the decks in a very meaningful way, and the sight of him had sent the crew scattering back to their duties.

"What did they want to know?" he asked Gibbs as he watched the men scuttle away.  
"About the ship behind us. That, and where we be goin'."  
"And..?"  
"And what?"  
"What did you tell them?"  
"Like you said, that the ship is there to lend us aid should we need it, and that we are going to see someone who might know about Barbossa."  
Jack nodded silently and made to turn away, his face shuttered. He'd been unusually serious, almost remote, since he had returned to the Pearl, and the persistence of his sombre mood was setting Gibbs back hair up, for it was unusual for Jack to go more than a day or so without playing the fool in some way or another.  
"Why Jack?" he blurted out.  
Jack turned, looking more confused than annoyed at the question,  
"Why what?"  
"Barbossa. Why? There be no love lost twixt the pair of you, so why?"  
He moved closer and put hand on his friend's wrist,  
"Tis foolhardy to go there of all places, particularly now when you knows the Spanish are rare desperate to get sight of you. Why not just leave Barbossa somewhere safe if you not be inclined to toss him over the side?.... ..and I can see why you might not be." He hurried to add. "But going there... where we be goin'. Why?"

The curve of Jack's lips flattened and his whiskers outlined the downward turn of his mouth as he looked at the hand on his arm. For a moment it seemed to Gibbs that he was seeing another time and place, another hand. Jack was silent for a moment then he smiled a cold and bitter smile,  
"As well chain him to the mast, as the lady captain so clearly, and kindly, pointed out to me."  
Gibbs swallowed hard and wondered again at the dealing between those two, for old friend as he was he'd think more than twice before reminding Jack of that incident. But the captain seemed more concerned by other memories and other treachery than that, and he raised his eyes and stared towards the sea, now dark and shadowed under the stars,  
"This may or may not be Calypso's doing, but I'll not be her pawn in it if it is. I've had enough of dancing on a goddess's string for the while I thank you. I shot him once, and I'd do so again," he paused as if remembering another voice for a moment, his frown deepening at whatever the thought was, " but I'll not see him like this."  
The words trailed off into silence. Then, seeing Gibbs anxious frown, he smiled a small and weary smile.  
"The Spanish can look all they like mate, they'll not see us. Trust me on that. Elanor and her ghost will watch our backs, and naught gets passed their beady eyes. We'll be fine as long as she sails with us."

'That answered one question maybe,' Gibbs thought to himself, the one of why he would not move unless she came too, 'Relies on little in this world do Jack, but seems he's comfortable enough to rely on her and her ghost. Polly was right maybe.'  
But Jack was still talking, though his voice had dropped to a low growl,  
"I've seen hell Mr Gibbs, and what an unforgiving eternity can mean for a man. I've no taste for bein' the judge that sends someone else there. Not on someone else's say so at least. Man lives his life and takes the consequences, and that's fair enough in my book, but this smacks of unfair interference to me. If there is a way he can be returned to his unpleasant self then I'll try it. If we fail .." he flapped a dismissive hand, "well..so be it. Can live with that."  
He pointed a long finger towards Gibbs.  
" If we succeed though, then he and I are going to have words. When he is back amongst the living.. Then..... I'll shoot him!"  
With that he strode off leaving Gibbs to stare after him and wonder just what it was that captain Elanor and her ghost had said.

***

In the sea between the two ships that Lady and Calypso watched for a moment, each satisfied with what they saw. Before them the black ship was hoisting more canvas, skimming the seas as if hull and wave were partners in a dance, behind them the future ship, decks and sails impossibly white in the moonlight, took up the tempo of that dance and joined in, bow rising as she matched speed and course.

The die was cast now, these two captains would not abandon their course and they would see the matter through, for both were canny and neither of them cared to fail. But there were still other cards to be laid if matters were to fall out right.

In the shadow of the spray The Lady looked at the sea goddess with a slightly questioning smile; Calypso returned the look with one of steady and expressionless consideration for a moment before a sly smile slid over her painted lips,  
"Aye, there be those who'd best be prepared," she purred as if answering unspoken words. "I know where witty Jack be headed, 'tis a good choice is true, though a hard one for him of aaall men, but a little help would nat go amiss." Her voice took on a sharper note, "But let us be clear on this, the bargain remains as it were. Agreed Lady?"

The silent shade seemed to consider that for a moment before she dipped her head, looked towards the departing ships, and smiled her agreement.

***

They sailed for a month, heading south with the white ship always close behind them. They stopped and took on water and fruit just once as they skirted the coast of Guyana then they headed down the coat of the the southern Americas before turning north again and up the coast of Peru.

These were unfriendly waters, if indeed any could be called anything else for the moment. However years of studying his enemies told him that being taken by the English was preferable to falling into Spanish hands, at least with things being as they were. But he could do nothing about that other than remind himself that Elanor had no desire to be seen either and she had sharper eyes, or at least her ghost did. If danger threatened it would be she who shouted the warning first and so Jack kept a close watch on the white ship, one eye cocked for the warning flags.

He had no desire to meet a galleon at this point in time, however laden with treasure she might be, and any ship they encountered here would be carrying a lot of it, gold and silver and other pretty baubles. He'd taken a Spaniard before of course, and the memory of the last such encounter reminded him that the Spanish had as many scores to settle with Captain Jack Sparrow as the English king, and perhaps more, for he had made a pretty penny from the encounter. Made more than one powerful man look a fool too, though he'd not intended it to be the way of it. But this was not the time to risk damage to the Pearl, irrespective of the hold full of treasure that a Spanish ship caught here might have.  
'Twas a pity that the crew knew that too,' he thought' It had been some time since they had done any pirating worth the name and few of them would be willing to pass up the chance of a doubloon or ten, not without an argument at least. Watching them he could see that they were both nervous and hopeful of the possibility of a rewarding scrap. Jack, however, had every intention of passing up such an opportunity, was relying on Elanor's ghost to make sure that no such chance arose in fact. Her far seeing eyes would warn him well before a possible prize came into view, which would allow them time to avoid being seen.

Her presence brought another boon too, for it saved him from having to trust the vagaries of the compass. In the circumstances he would prefer not to have to navigate while all the time hoping that he was wanting the right thing at the critical moment, or, perhaps more to the point, that he understood which of his wants the compass was addressing at a given moment in time. Jack was quite well aware that his wants were as confusing as they had ever had been, more so than usual in fact, just as he knew that life would never again be as straightforward as it had been back in the days when he stole the Dauntless to seek the Pearl. Dying had a terrible habit of complicating matters, even after you returned to the world.

For a moment he spared a thought for William who would one day face the same realisation, and with added the complication of having Elizabeth waiting for him too. And she would be waiting on that far off shore; she would keep her battle made vows and stay true for the necessary time to achieve her beloved's freedom despite the undeniable cost. Jack was sure of that, not least because he would make it his business to see to it that she was. and did.

He pulled his mind back to the matter in hand and his need for discretion, them having no knowledge of the gold lying in the strong room of the ship behind them, or of her ability to get them more. So it was for the best they didn't know. Might give them ideas about visiting the white ship if they found out, them being pirates, which would be a painful confrontation for them and probably for him too. Elanor had a cutting way with words in the appropriate situation, assuming she contented herself with words that was, and he had no wish to irritate her more than was necessary while he was still so dependent upon her assistance. He didn't think she would cut and run even then, but he couldn't be completely sure.

Not for the first time he cursed life for giving him so little experience of women of her ilk

***.

But she was true to her word, whatever she thought of their mission, and twice in the next few days she flew the warning flags, giving him a new heading away from the approaching vessel. But the ocean was empty as they headed u0p the coast towards Lima, and the greatest military danger, in the middle of the night watches. Yet despite Elanor's ghost's watchfulness Jack remained on deck as they crossed the main trade route, scanning the waters around them through the glass. Her glass that was, for she had handed it to him just as he was leaving,  
"Don't lose this Jack, " she had seemed a little concerned as he smiled widely and tucked it inside his coat. "If you get taken at any time then make sure you pitch it over the side or under a hedge before they get you. They probably wouldn't recognise it as being special until they tried to use it, by which time I expect they would have hung you, but even so it would not be sensible to let it fall into other people's hands."  
He'd pouted at her implication, but then stared at her with serious eyes as he thought through the consequences,  
"Then why give it me?" he demanded, still a little annoyed.  
She smiled slightly and turned away,  
"Because I'd rather you were a little better prepared than the enemy if we should get separated."  
Her voice was quiet and resigned and yet something about it flicked him on the raw,  
"Enemy? Whose enemy? Enemies are all mine not yours!" He'd scoffed, trying to push the uncomfortable feeling away.  
She had given him a straight look at that,  
"Pretty much everyone in this world is my enemy, believe me, and you know it."  
He'd opened his mouth protest, then shut it as eh caught her look, she was probably right and she knew that he knew it.  
"Aye, well, I suppose that's the case." was all he said.

'Not much else he could say really, not in the circumstances,' he had thought as he had rowed back to the Pearl, 'But best not forget that it was not my doing that she's here. I've taken far too much responsibility for other people's mistakes recently, mustn't slip into doing that again.'  
But some deeply buried part of his mind promised at that point that he would do nothing more to endanger her and her beautiful ship than he was already doing. The rest of his mind just hoped that events would let him honour that vow without killing someone else, especially himself.

Now he recalled that thought as he slid the glass inside his coat, and he sighed.  
'After all it's not as if I haven't got enough worries of my own,' he mused with a wriggle of disquiet, 'An hour or two and every sense will be telling me I'm back in that bloody locker, and I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do this.'  
He looked around him at the busy men who did his bidding, for the moment at least, knowing that he couldn't let them see. Some of them had been there of course and so might suspect, if they had the imagination to think about it, but certainty was a different matter and for his own sake, as well as theirs, he must not let them know. He was on his own with this and he couldn't afford to show a moment of weakness, whatever it cost him in nightmares later.  
'Nothing new there then,' he thought as he headed below decks in search of rum.

***

The sky was just starting to lighten as they rounded the headland, edged carefully in towards the shore and dropped anchor. Jack knew what he would see before he raised the glass and steeled himself for the blanching of his stomach the sight was likely to bring. The first glance proved him right about that and he swallowed hard on the sudden nausea, trying to slow his racing heartbeat by force of will as he looked at the shoreline.

The coastal strip here was a desert, white and bleak and baked by a hazy but powerful sun. It was just as he recalled it, mile upon mile of glittering sands, dry and silent, rolling as the swell, and fronted by wave after wave of impressive dunes. Jones could have taken this inhospitable strip as the model for the locker; indeed he might have done so for the resemblance was uncanny. Jack repressed a shudder as he realised he was looking for the shadow of the Pearl on those dunes.

Once he was beyond the first crest of dunes there would be no sight of the sea, no hint of water at all, only the sun, the glare and the shimmering heat. Just like the locker.

But there was no choice, he had to cross several miles of that bone dry hell before he would reach the place he needed to be, and reach it he must if he was to do this, for there was no other way of summoning her.

For a moment he stood and stared unseeing at the shoreline and wondered if he really, really, wanted to do this. Why should he put himself through what he suspected was to come for Barbossa, the man who twice stole his ship? So what if Calypso was behind the old goat's state, no doing of his now was it, so why should he make it good?  
'But its not really for Barbossa is it?' the little voce from the back of his mind trilled. 'As much for you as for him, is it not? Need to be able to live with yourself don't you? If you walk away now . well maybe you will. then again maybe you won't. Don't want to risk finding out when the chance is past now do you? Eh? Anyway, face this now and you are free of it, walk away and it will have you by the goods forever. You know that.'

There was no escaping the truth of that last thought. The nightmares were less frequent now but they still came, and they would do so forever unless he found a way to break the hold of the fear. He had hoped that the water of life would end it but that had proved to be a forlorn hope. In the nights after drinking it he had realised that though it would take away the threat of the locker it could not remove the memory of it. The place remained in his head, a destination waiting for him whenever he closed his eyes. Only going back and beating it would truly set him free.

That was one reason why Elanor had come, for in the horror of realisation he had most unwisely told her of what awaited him here.

Now the wondering was over, now was time for the reality of it. For a moment his stomach turned and he felt the same hopeless dread that he had felt all those years ago as he had watched red hot metal descend on his flesh, knowing what awaited him if it happened and unable to change it. Just as then he wanted to scream and beg, to do whatever it might take to remove the impending disaster. But just as then he was resolved to do no such thing. Pride? Maybe, or maybe even then he had known that his only hope of survival lay in not doing what was expected of him.

Yet he was surprised to hear his own voice carry across the deck, Captain Jack Sparrow at his most calm and authoritative, as if his vitals were not a squirming and jellified turmoil,  
"Lower the boats."

***

The deepest circle of hell is cold, not hot, so they say. A wasteland of ice not lakes of boiling sulphur holds those guilty of the greatest sins. Yet this place was both, for it had the look of ice even as it burned like the fire of damnation. Just like the locker.

High above them the sky was fogged, the haze hiding the furnace whose blast seared their skins and lanced their eyes. The sand beneath their boots would have steamed had there been any water here, instead it had to console itself with slipping away beneath them, the shifting surface making it an effort to stand, let alone walk, the effort of doing so turning their thigh muscles to lead within a few paces. Even Elanor looked hot, her pale skin flushed and shiny, her hair spitting gold and silver sparks in the hard glare of the light.

Gibbs had been horrified when Jack told him he was to stay with the ship, but it had to be that way for Jack would not risk another abandonment. For the same reason he had chosen to take Raggetti ashore but not Pintel, and two of the newer crew, including Murtogg Yet he needed someone he could trust, or probably trust, which without Gibbs left him with a choice of one, so whether he wanted it or not Elanor had to come too.

They had met on the stark white shore, Jack making sure that she arrived before they did to give her the advantage. She had understood that for she had met them with knives as well as pistols in her belt, familiar weaponry on display to draw attention away from the hidden and less familiar ones. That, and establish her a one of them, a pirate, in their minds. Her stance mirrored his own as he jumped out and sauntered up the beach to meet her.

Even so he heard the muttered curses behind him and caught sight of the tow headed lad called Ironnson cross himself before he clambered out of the boat. For a moment Jack saw her through their eyes, observing again those attributes of the lady that had become too familiar to see most times; the unreal perfection of her, the frightening clarity of her beauty and the strange aura of power that hung around her. Looking at her in this unforgiving white daylight he thought could also see, for the first time, the slight changes the water had brought about in her. Her hair seemed slightly brighter, the line of her jaw slightly softer and her eyes even larger than before; even her outline seemed slightly changed, the line of her limbs if anything more elegant and her balance more cat like. Fleetingly he wondered if she saw similar changes in him; and what the crew had noticed, if anything.

Raggetti was standing frozen in the surf, staring at the lady in something close to wonderment. When she turned to inspect Jack's companions the man blushed and dipped his gaze downwards as if afraid. Jack breathed slightly easier at the sight, the worry he had refused to admit, that they might force him to defend her, easing. He turned back towards her and nodded his head in brief acknowledgement,  
"Captain Cavendish," he kept his voice carefully neutral, without flourish or flounce, or hint of flirtation, "kind of you to accompany us."  
It was a greeting of equals, sailor adventurer to sailor adventurer, and he knew the men with him would recognise it as such and follow his lead, for the moment at least It was the best he could do in the circumstances. She didn't smile or speak but just inclined her head in acknowledgement. Jack suppressed a smile and breathed easier, she knew how to play the game.

Formalities over he cast a backward look to make sure that the three were ashore and then steeled himself to look inland.

In front of them the sands shimmered white as an ancient bone beneath a milky sky. He felt bile rise in his throat at the sight of it. These dunes were almost indistinguishable from those that the Pearl had breasted to reach the locker shore, only the breeze betraying that this was not the same place. He had known this place was similar but not so similar, not so.. ...familiar in its burning whiteness. It even smelled like the locker and he could almost believe that if he turned back towards the surf he would see Elizabeth, hear her speaking to him of rescue. Rescue! a voice deep within his head scoffed, as if such a place could ever be escaped from. It couldn't of course, there was no undoing what had been done, not where such a place was concerned. Barbossa wasn't the only one trapped within his head, it was just that unlike his old enemy he was still walking around, like one of those monsters from the stories sailors sometimes told, the walking dead.

For a moment he felt rooted to the spot, as if his boots were suddenly lined with lead, as a rising surge of fear sent needles pricking his veins and tightened bands of steel within his chest. Voices on the wind seemed to clamour at him, many voices, some laughing, some crying, some screaming, and all of them his own voice.  
Jack swallowed hard as an icy wave washed down his back and set his belly burning, he had known it would be hard, but not this hard.

"Captain Sparrow." Elanor's voice cut across the silence, her tone was calm and impersonal, without apparent emphasis. "You have a course in mind I trust, for I'd prefer this business was done with as soon as possible. These are hostile waters and I for one would rather not have my ship caught at anchor by the Spanish."  
Jack looked at her wide eyed, her face showed little but some shadow in the expression in her own eyes told him that she knew what he was feeling, and that she doing all she could in the circumstances to pull him back to the present, playing on the one thing that could reach him, he realised, the concern for his ship. A surge of something close to gratitude swept through him, for her words steadied him and drove back away the threatened panic.  
"Aye, I'm at one with you on that."  
The reminder of his name also pulled the familiar mask back into place and the words came out well enough.

With an assumed ease he pulled the compass from his belt, the steady needle easing another concern, and with a flourish he pointed in the same direction,  
"That way."


	7. Chapter 7

**Voyages of the Dawn Chaser**

**Voyage Three - Lucifers Sword**

**Chapter 7 Shadows and reflections **

There was no denying that memory was sometimes a burden he could have done without carrying, and this was certainly one of those times. The voices were still hovering on the wind and not even the harsh rasp of his breathing seemed to drown them out. He had fought to leave the memories of the revelations of the locker behind him every day since the moment when the sky had flashed green for his soul; day and night, through wind and rain and blood he had struggled to pull the pieces of his fractured self together. Yet he had only half succeeded, even before Barbossa had abandoned him at Tortuga. In the face of that abandonment, and the arrival into his life of this strange woman and her ship, he had redoubled his efforts to leave his doubts behind him, just as he had left his two separated selves behind in the brig of the Dutchma. But he could not deny that it worked less often than was to his taste. Here, with the blank whiteness calling out to those memories, and with little to distract him but the discomforts, it was harder than usual.

It was a long walk and he feared that he'd be plagued by introspection all the way there.

Jack did not often spend time thinking about his own nature, at least he hadn't in the past, not since....... well not for a long time; and he was aware that he did it less often than perhaps he should. But he had learned several hard lessons years ago, not least that men were what they were and that there was no going back; and that having right and truth on your side did not of itself assure justice. Nor even the protection of the law, not when power and wealth were involved. Unlike many others he had known he had not forgotten the things he had learned, even those that were uncomfortable, and he never allowed himself to lose sight of the fact that sorry did not make it all better. Nor was the world well lost for love, and those who thought it did, or was, were deluded fools. He knew himself to be many things, after the locker there was no getting away from most of them, even if he wanted to, but he was not a fool of any kind. He had his rules and he stuck to them, but he was aware that they were not the rules of god fearing society and he did not blame those who used their own rules against him. But now, as he struggled up the towering dunes in the searing heat of the sun and recollection, he wondered which of his rules he was obeying.

'Why am I doing this again?' he asked himself.

Barbossa had stolen his ship twice, had left him to die twice, and yet he could not raise his hand against the man. More than that he was back in hell trying to find a way for his old enemy to escape from his own hell. Why? Why was he doing this?

As he struggled across the top of the dune and began the undignified slither down the other side, he cursed himself for being a fool after all. Would Barbossa do the same for him? Not bloody likely! The old reprobate would have laughed at his plight and tossed him over the side had their roles been reversed. So why, then, was he doing this?

Because this time Barbossa had left him safe ashore rather than dying of thirst? Lunacy! The man had stolen his ship again whatever else he had done. So why couldn't he just find him a safe berth and leave him for nature to take its remorseless and unforgiving course?  
'To prove you are the better man.' Came the answer from some small part of him.  
He frowned at it,  
' I'm Captain Jack Sparrow! I've no need to prove anything! Done that already, and a thousand times over,' he told himself sternly. 'Done it so bloody often it's getting tedious!'  
The shrunken head on his belt swung against his thigh as if to mock him,  
'Do you not?' the little voice taunted again, tipping a metaphorical wink in the direction of the gruesome trophy.  
Jack scowled down at the sands slipping away beneath his boots but, somehow, could find no further answer to the charge.

For a moment he stopped to drawn breath and mop his face with the tails of his scarf. Behind him he heard Raggetti draw a heaving sigh, while Ironnson on his left bent forward, hands on knees, head hanging trying to seek the shade of his own body for a moment to ease his scorched and sand encrusted eyes. Jack watched him without expression but he felt a slight surge of contempt, now the stupid bugger would know why his captain wore kohl!

On his right Elanor was standing upright drawing deep gasps of the hot air, her own eyes narrowed against the glare. She had left her darkened lenses on her ship but she too had lined her eyes with something smokey and glistening, and for a moment he wondered if she had picked up the trick the same place as he had, or whether everyone in her strange world knew of it. They certainly knew something of the sun and its power for her fair skin showed no sign of scorching, unlike Murtogg whose nose looked close to blistering. Ironnson too appeared a little over cooked in places and Raggetti's cheekbones had the tint of raw meat. He saw the three men looking at the lady with something close to awe, for not only was she wearing the heat with more ease than they, but she had kept pace with them with no apparent effort, at least with no more effort than anyone else.

Jack was not surprised, having seen her negotiate the forests and sands surrounding the water of life, and having felt the strength in those elegant hands it was no less than he had expected. If it came to a physical tussle between her and any of these men she might well be more than a match for them, assuming she was ruthless enough, and he rather thought that she might be. He cast her a surreptitious look as they stood and stared into the white horizon, there was steel in her to be sure, real steel, and understanding too, not the hubris of youth and the desolation of grief that had fired Elizabeth to fight.

Unlike the governor's daughter the lady was disciplined too. There were times when he could almost see her maybe-ancestor the Commodore standing at her shoulder and nodding his approval. No, Barbossa would not have found her the easy clay to meld that he had found in Elizabeth. But that did not mean that she was soft, she was not, and like the Commodore she would probably be a ruthless and efficient enemy in the right circumstances. Personally he had no ambition at all to put that assumption to the test.

In fact she was rather like himself, at least sometimes he rather fancied that she was. And he had no ambition to test that either. Well not a lot....., or rather not to test all of it,..... bits of it he wouldn't mind the chance of testing at all now he came to think about it. Which he didn't .....think about.. ..or rather didn't let himself think about at all..... or at least not very often.

He shot her a sideways glance, her face was inscrutable in the hard light and her pose was all of confidence, though she could be no more comfortable in the presence of his crew than they were in hers. Yes, he was sure that she was like him in many ways. More than was comfortable at times if he were honest about it All in all he was glad she was here, and very determined that she would not discover that fact. If she didn't already know it, which given her far sightedness in other matters she might well be.

"Is it much further captain?" Raggetti asked, sending a rather nervous look in Jack's direction as if aware he was breaking into his captain's private thoughts.  
Jack seemed to take a moment to come back from wherever his mind had been, and then he shrugged,  
"Mile or two."  
"Long way in this heat." Ironnson grunted.  
"Aye it is." Mutrogg agreed.  
"Get no shorter standin' here and contemplating it." Jack replied and strode forward.  
The three men cast him wary glances for his tone was abrupt and, in some indefinable way, threatening, then looked away. Murtogg looked at him nervously for a moment longer, he still hadn't fully reconciled the man he had met on the docks at Port Royale with the pirate captain of these last weeks and the more he saw of him the less he could work it out. Sometimes they seemed to be two different people, for the man that he and Mullroy had driven off the Interceptor, the one whose stories had whiled away a hot and tedious morning, had not seemed particularly dangerous. Nor had the dripping man they had put in chains only a short time later; in fact that man had seemed a cringing fool, almost servile in the face of the Commodores taunts, just as the man they had taken off the island with Miss Swann had seemed. Yet there was nothing of the fool and no servility about the man standing on these blistering sands, nor had there been in the one who had commanded the Pearl on its journey here. It was a paradox that confused him and made him uncertain of how to react to his new captain, made him wary when around him too, after all he was used to officers who behaved as such all the time.

But, Mullroy had reminded him, Mr Sparrow had been clever too, and sure of himself and his plan even then, which was true enough.

Only when he recalled the man who had held the chain to Miss Swann's neck, the one with the steely look in his eye and the command in his voice as he stared down the Commodore, did the memories come together. Then he understood that, unlike his own commanders, Jack Sparrow was as pliant as a willow wand and he would be what ever it took to survive, but that at the core he was as determined and dogged as Mr Norrington had ever been. Dangerous most certainly, but clever and adaptable too, and perhaps, given the circumstances, no more capricious than his erstwhile commander.

But it was the dangerous bit that was the fore for the moment Murtogg realised as he watched his capatain swagger away, despite the difficulties of walking on the deep, hot, sand. He recognised the same harmonics in the now familiar voice as he had heard that far away day on the dockside at Port Royale. Jack Sparrow was not happy in the situation he found himself in but he was going to follow it through, and they were going to follow him while he did it, for his captain was not in the mood to be questioned or reasoned with. They would go where he wanted them to go. Some instinct that he couldn't put a name to said that only the lady could turn the captain away from his goal, and it seemed that she was not inclined to.

Wearily he trailed in the pirate's wake without further protest.

***

The sun had grown hotter as they walked, yet Jack knew that they could not afford to stop for long if they were to make it to shelter before noon when the high mists would be gone and the sun would be at its most fierce and relentless. He was aware, too, that the men were tired and restless and uneasy, so the sooner the business was begun the better. They would not turn against him but much longer in this heat and they would be useless for anything, unfortunate if the need for something should arise. Better to push on and get under cover as soon as it could be managed.

He was right about the unease, each of them was feeling an oppression that went beyond the heat and the glare, as if some other force lay heavy on their shoulders despite the isolated desolation of the place. Raggetti in particular was finding the place worryingly familiar and he had no doubt that his captain was doing so too, which made the whole business even more eerie. The sands had flattened out beyond the dunes and Jack halted for half a stride and checked his direction with compass, and then he strode out into the flat strip of desert behind them. On the horizon they could see the shadows of mountains, blue grey in the shimmering heat, and each man felt a sinking of the heart as they wondered if he might expect them to walk that far in the full glare of the sun.

But it seemed that he did not, instead he turned right and skirted the dunes heading up the coast away from the place they had landed.

As they walked on the dunes grew taller still, the slopes becoming steep and insurmountable, like small mountains made of sand. Looking around her Elanor couldn't help but wonder if they were natural or manmade, and if the latter then who had built them? Was that who Jack had come in search of? Might as well be for all he had told them of their goal. All they could see was sand, and in the distance the blue shadows of the mountains, smudged and secretive, for there was no sign that anyone lived here at all.

Then, after twenty minutes or so of wearying and leg-wrenching walking came the first sign of occupation as the interminable sand was broken by something more solid. Ahead of them an outcrop of rock appeared, a hard angled slab wedged between sentinels of towering sand.

Jack took a few more paces then paused for a moment and they all stared in silence as more outcrops appeared from within the glare; a row of markers it seemed, hard stone blasted into strange shapes by the same sand that stood between them and the sea, standing like bulwarks between shore and desert, pointing the way to the far off mountains.

After a moment of looking the captain pushed on towards them, halting at the base of the first one and running his right hand carefully over the rough, sand pitted surface with a look of concentration. He stood for a moment more, hands on hips, considering the stone he had just touched, then he checked his bearing again and moved forward, making his way into the avenue of leafless stone trees, wending his way between two of the bigger ones. More tall stones were appearing from the haze, a double line of them stretching out along the sands, yet going nowhere it seemed. Even so Jack had his head down as he walked forward, watching the ground, as if he knew exactly where he was going but needed to mind his footing. Elanor followed him without hesitation but the other men paused for a moment longer, looking in despair at the desolation around them, before they did the same. Feeling a hint of something they could quite catch as they moved into the orbit of the stone, a feeling that grew stronger as they made their way further in.

***

"What's he up to? That's what I wants to know? Why be we here?"  
Pintel was not a happy man and it showed in both his face and voice. When that demand brought no answer he tried again, using another tack,  
"Got no love for Barbossa we all knows that, so what's he doin'?"

Beside him Mr Gibbs wondered much the same, and, like Pintel, he wished they were somewhere else; not that he planned on saying so to present company.

The two men were stood at the rail of the Pearl staring across choppy waters to the small inlet where the longboat sat abandoned. Gibbs wished he could have gone too, but the man at his side was a constant reminder of why that couldn't be. He looked towards him for a moment, noting the worry lines around the glaring eyes and the tension in the balled fists with understanding, knowing that Raggetti was this unlovely man's only friend, and Raggetti was over there. A fleeting fellow feeling borne of that realisation caused he him to answer the question rather than just curse the man back to his work.  
"Aye. Jack got no love for Barbossa 'tis true, but its not that what brings him here to my view."  
Pintel hissed a sigh,  
"Then what be it? No plunder to be had here, no profit at all, so why he drag us to this pile of sand!"  
He cast Gibbs an uncertain look,  
"Captain Jack's different in some way, always was strange but now he's.... stranger. Looks different too. Well, looked different when he came back from the locker but now he's different again. You must have noticed it. " He narrowed his eyes in sudden thought, "looks more like I remember him from way back, not the same.. but more like."

Gibbs held his breath and hoped that Pintel of all people hadn't noticed more than that, for he had noted the subtle changes himself, and understood what it meant too. Not something he was inclined to discuss with this mutinous rotter though.  
"That's your conscience speaking," he scoffed, "having committed mutiny against him twice."  
"'Aint so I says. Weren't mutiny anyways, left him alive didn't we? But that not what I mean, and you know it, he looks... " Pintel, an inarticulate man most of the time, struggled for the right words for what were little more than vague impressions and uneasiness, "less.. resigned, less weary."  
It wasn't the right word and he knew it, but it was the best that he could do. Certainly while Gibbs was looking at him in this bulge eyed way. Mr Gibbs tended to get a bit touchy when captain Jack's state of health were mentioned, and it had been mentioned amongst the crew many times. He and Raggetti had remarked to each other on the change in captain Jack but neither had been able to explain quite what it was that seemed changed. Not given to staring their captain in the face were they? So it was hard to explain quite what was different, but something certainly was. Only Raggetti had come close to an observation they could all agree on when he said that it looked as if Captain Jack had had his first good night of sleep in a long, long time. As if all the weariness that had come back from the locker with him had been slept away and with it the scars of past times.

Gibbs was still glaring at him so he hurried back into speech,  
"Not sayin' that he's any crazier than he's ever been just..... different like. But if he not be crazy then why has he brought us here?"  
Gibbs thought for a moment then shrugged,  
"Same as them other changes you claim to see. Bein' dead, that's at the bottom of it to my way of thinking. That and words."  
Gibbs ire seemed to have melted away and now Pintel risked a glare of his own,  
"Words? Words! Pox on them words then!"  
That bought him a grim smile,  
"Might well be, given who said 'em." He looked out towards the shore again and spoke almost to himself, "Jack has no more love for his sire as he has for Barbossa, but he is inclined to heed the words of a man who lived so long and survived as much as Teague has. Given that he has ambitions to do the same."  
Pintel turned a disbelieving look on him,  
"Teague, what it got to do with the keeper? Weren't the keeper's biddin' what brought him here to this wasteland."  
Gibbs seemed to think about how to answer that for a moment, and then he sighed,  
"Were and it weren't you might say. A bit o' Teague and bit of Miss Elizabeth is at the bottom of this I'm thinkin'"  
"Mrs Turner? Her! What's she got to say to it?"

Gibbs shot Pintel a serious look,  
"Condemned him to hell she did and he alone knows what that meant. Havin' been there though.... well.....he'll not go that road hisself if he can avoid it. Captain Cavendish now, she told him that to leave Barbossa like this is as good as doin' so. Put that with the fact that Teague told him that it's a man living with himself that counts, and you ends up here is my reckoning. Whatever he thinks of Barbossa I'm guessing that Jack's doin' this as much for his own sanity as anything."  
"Barbossa will not thank him for it, whatever the reason." Pintel growled before Gibbs words really sunk in.  
Then he stared across at the white ship anchored not far away before rounding on Gibbs once again, this time in outrage,  
"Her, you says her! Captain o' that ship be a her do it?"  
Gibbs cursed himself silently but nodded,  
"Aye." He said reluctantly  
Pintel almost danced in his rage,  
"Another one! Another hussy a'leadin him by the balls and draggin' us all to our doom! Wasn't poppet bad enough, she and her stiff bummed lad? Look where havin' her aboard got us! The locker is where it got us. Now he brings another one down on us! What's this one after?"

Gibbs thought about that for a moment,  
"I don't know that she wants anything at all, at least I've never heard her ask for anything, from Jack or anyone else. Which is enough to intrigue Jack Sparrow o'course."  
'Better not to mention her ghost for the moment', he decided as he shot Pintel a warning look,  
"But she be a proper captain this one, a lady too, as ever there was one,"  
The same warning was in his voice for he'd not have Pintel cross the lady and bring the wrath of that ghost and her tame lightning down upon them,  
"But an officer and a captain through and through, and as proper a sailor as the Commodore were before the rum got him. You'll be remembering that if you should meet her. She might not take it amiss if you don't but you can be sure that Jack will be doing so."

Pintel glowered,  
"She!" he said in open disgust.  
Gibbs gave a rueful smile at his tone,  
" Aye, but not like Miss Elizabeth at all, except in one matter, if she were to take anything amiss I would not want to be in the shoes she were takin' amiss to. Though she might well not need steel to make her displeasure felt, if you take my meanin.'"  
"Just a lass all said and done," Pintel grunted.  
Gibbs shook his head,  
"Aye well, you'd not say that if you'd felt the strength of her arm. Not even Barbossa would have complaint in that."  
He nodded towards the Dawn Chaser,  
"Fine ship that be and good to have beside us in a tight spot, the lady captain too. I've seen her hold her own in a fight and a sight it was indeed. Has some very powerful ways does the lady captain and you'd best be remembering it."  
Pintel rolled his eyes,  
"So where did he find this one then?" He didn't sound reconciled to the situation.  
"Who knows?" Gibbs shrugged, "Jack be Jack and if there is a little craziness floatin' around them it's sure to land on his shoulders; particularly if the craziness happens to be of the female persuasion too. Has always been the way of it. You know that."

Pintel glowered,  
"Aye, I knows it, but I don't likes it. Makes me wish for Barbossa back it do."  
Gibbs frowned and turned a threatening look on the sailor, his hand going to the pistol in his belt,  
"Would you now?"  
The menace was clear in his voice and Pintel back tracked quickly,  
"Not to say as prefer, not really. Anyways he's as weird as Captain Jack now and I can't see him a getting much better. Lied to us about that there fountain too."  
Gibbs cast him a measuring look but there was no sign that the man knew anything about Jack's foray to that place, 'better it stays that was too, ' he thought, 'at least for a while.'  
"You remember that if ye be tempted to mutiny again," he said aloud, "Jack is easy enough most times but try that again and I wouldn't be so sure it won't be the plank he rolls out for ye. Now back to your duties, we need to be ready to quit at a moments notice so I want this ship ready for anything that comes a'lookin'"

He watched Pintel hurry away for a moment before looking back towards the dunes; for the hundredth time since they had left the shoreline he wondered where they were and how they were faring. He let his eyes drift up to the milky sky, a sky that was nigh on impossible to read even for a man with as many years experience of weather as he had, and hoped they wouldn't be too long.

***

Between the pillars of rock the light and the dark stood side by side, white hot glare folded in with knife sharp shadows of something more than black. Anything or anyone could hide in these rips in the daylight and each man reached for a weapon without thought, their steps slowing as they scanned the spaces around them for any hint of movement or other threat. Elanor put her hands to her belt to check the tasar then eased a pistol butt higher in her belt to give a faster draw; she hoped that she didn't have to use it, given that she had modified it a little. Raggtti was staring suspiciously at a particularly threatening looking rock, he thought he could make out the shape of letters or pictures on its surface and he felt a shiver of dread pass down his back. For reasons he couldn't explain he was sure that something or someone was watching them.

Jack seemed unconcerned, or rather grimly determined, for his mouth was set in a straight line and there was a deep fold between his brows. Without a word he strode on ahead, weaving around the rocky outcrops as if he knew his way. He hoped that he did.

As he rounded a corner he got his answer, for he saw a wider avenue of similar, but larger, stones stretching away from him, running parallel with the sea. These were more obviously shaped and carved and topped in places by ornate caps that might once have carried statues, though those seemed long gone and all trace of them lost beneath the sands. Relief swept through him as he realised that he was near his destination, for he had seen these columns once before.

Elanor looked around her, the stone's original height was masked by the sand deposited by time, and the wind, around the base of them and between them, but it was clear even now that they would have been so impressive as to be terrifying when they were first placed here. Which was what they must had been intended to be, for this avenue was no natural occurrence but the painstaking work of men. A work with a purpose, though that had been lost long ago, at least for most people.

Without a so much as a glance behind him Jack set off down between the towering pillars,  
"Keep to the centre ground, away from the shadows," he threw over his shoulder as he strode away.  
Elanor watched him with grimly narrowed eyes for a moment, then she followed his lead; the men fell in behind her, each looking around fearfully as they progressed between the stones.

Perhaps a quarter of a mile further on the avenue turned inland in a graceful sweep and Jack followed it with the others strung out behind him. Ahead of them the knife edged shadows cut black swathes across the white glare of the sand, and as they stared into that hard light they thought they saw the outline of a different shadow on the ground before them. As they got closer it became clear that this shadow was not shade cast by the towering rocks, instead it marked a dip in the sand, a deep depression from the look of it. Jack seemed to be heading for it, a hint of weary relief in the set of his shoulders as if this was where he had been going and was glad to arrive. Closer still and it could be seen that the shadow laid on the sand was the lip of a steep stone slab that inclined down below the level of the sands.

Elanor suppressed a groan at the sight, what was it about Jack and holes in the sand! At least this time he didn't expect them to have to dig, or if he did it would be with their hands for they had not brought spades.

But as they approached the dark edge it became clear why this was, there would be no need for digging this time, for this was a pathway, and it had been kept open by someone for some purpose. But someone who didn't welcome visitors, not to judge by the intricate, and very closed, gate of carved black rock, a gate complete with an elaborate, square barrelled, lock.

Raggetti edged forward and put a hesitant hand upon the bars either side of the lock then shook them gently and with a wary look on his face. The gate didn't move.  
"Locked," he said with some relief, "So what now captain?"  
His hopeful tone suggested he was wishing that they could leave it locked but Jack's silence told him otherwise and he sighed,  
" Try a knife blade? " He pulled his knife from his belt, "or do we put a pistol ball through it and hope that does the trick?"

Jack shot him a slightly shocked look,  
"No need," he said, "not when you have the key."  
With that he reached up and pulled the whalebone needle from its place beside his temple, then he unthreaded one of the intricately carved trinkets from his hair and inserted the needle into the hole it had been threaded on, pushing it half way in and twisting. They locked together as if they were made to, the two becoming one slender square ended key. He moved closer to the gate and gingerly put the trinket end into the gate lock and pushed it home, drawing a deep breath he slowly turned the needle key until he heard the tumblers of a lock click. Then, with a slight smile and a flourish he pulled the key from the lock, pausing to break it down into its components, securing them back in their usual place, before pushing the gate open with one hand. It swung away silently as if newly oiled.  
He looked back at them with a devilish smile,  
"Shall we?"  
Then he strode through the gate.

Elanor watched him for a moment with raised brows, wondering what other strange artefacts he might have scattered about his person; and then, with a slight shake of her head, she set off after him.

Unwilling to be left behind the three men tagged unhappily behind her.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8 Instrument of the past**

Once it must have been an awesome place, one to intimidate and terrify even the bravest and most ungodly. The carved and fluted pillars must have towered to the sky, the quartz within the red stone glittering like hidden rubies in the sunlight.

Once.

Then the shadowed niches around the sunken court would have been tricked out with a thousand lamps, their tiny flames showing diamond bright against the velvet blackness of the secret places beneath. Their light striking sparks from the jeweled eyes of the statues that must have stood on the massive plinths between the columns. Silks and fine gemstones might have clothed those statues, bright as the paint that once filled the outline of the frescos around the pillars.

Once.

The wide shallow bowls would have held water no doubt, they were too large to have contained anything else, but scented perhaps and scattered with flower petals, maybe even speckled with flaked gold. Their calm surface echoing back the bright colours of the birds that had been painted on their gilded inner surface, and the robes of those who would have moved amongst them.

Once.

But that had been long ago and the glory that had dwelt here then was long since gone.

Now the sunken court wasnothing more than an empty and barren arena, lined with needles of rock that bore only faint remnants of the fine chiselling of their heyday, the niches between them just black shadows that were no doubt home to lizards and spiders, andthe squatting plinths wre like so many broken teeth in the mouth of an ancient whore. Here and there, in a sheltered spot where the blasting sand was less efficient, a pale ghost of colour still showed, and even a semi precious gem or two remained in those places where greedy or desperate hands had not been able to reach.

The splendour was long gone and with it any certainty of what this place had been, though Jack seemed to know and Elanor could guess.  
"Xanadu," She whispered to herself, though she knew that it wasn't,  
Jack looked back over his shoulder and shot her a surprised glance, then stared around him and nodded slowly,  
"Maybe, maybe not," he whispered back, "Similar sort of thing I expect. Long ago now, and the people who built it well forgotten."  
"Must have been something very special once, to someone."  
"Not argue that with you luv, you can feel it can you not? Seeping out of the stones."  
He seemed to shudder slightly then squared his shoulders and flicked an expressive hand,  
"Some powerful things were done here once," he said quietly.  
Elanor stirred the sand in one of the few un-cracked stone bowls with a wary finger, then moved a shard of pottery on the floor with a careful boot,  
"But not recently though. Nothing here now but lizards and memories."  
The pirate just nodded again and took another step forward, raising his hand to brush the dust from the remnants of a carving before peering at it as if reading the ancient text.

Elanor watched him for a moment before asking the inescapable question.  
"So why are we here Jack? What does this ruination of past glory offer us?"  
Slowly he turned away from the pillar and back towards her, with eyebrows raised,  
"Other than a lesson on the futility of human vanity and power do you mean?" he asked her half seriously.  
She gave him a hard look then smiled and nodded,  
"Yes, other than that. Presumably you brought us here for a reason other than the good of our souls?"  
" Aye, why are we here?" Ironnson spoke before Jack could respond to that, and for the first time since they had passed through the gate, "No treasure here, nothin' but sand an' stones. Don't look like anyone has been here in hundreds of years."  
Raggetti nodded his agreement, his good eye wide and fearful as he looked around him. Elanor waited for Jack's reply but there wasn't one, so after a second or two she spoke into the silence,  
"Someone has, maybe not recently, but within a man's lifetime."  
Jack looked at her, his expression half shuttered, half wary, and she smiled slightly.  
"You have been here, haven't you Jack?"

He met her eyes with a knowing look and there was silence for another second before he frowned and raised a wavering finger as if to protest, but just as quickly changed his mind and the frown melted as he smiled brightly,  
"Yes."  
There was reluctant admiration and some amusement in his voice but his shoulders were set and his other hand rested close to his pistol.  
"By choice?"  
That brought one of his wriggling shrugs, the one she had marked down as betraying mental discomfort of some form.  
"Depends on your perspective, I'd say," he said eventually.  
"Yours being....?" she invited.  
"Was looking for something, so you might say it was my choice, then again as I was going where I was told I would find the .........something. you might say it was not."  
'Only Jack would come up with an answer like that', she thought with an inward sigh.  
"The something being..?" she prompted, not really expecting to get an answer.  
Nor did she, at least not a spoken one,  
"Just..... something valuable." The gilded smile flashed brtight and slippery as a fish, "Treasure you might say."  
He finished on a soft and bland note, and with an even brighter smile, but his eyes flickered for a moment to the compass that hung as always from his belt, before meeting hers again. She smiled just as blandly,  
"And was it here, this treasure?"  
"It was not."  
"Ah, " she hitched her hip on the ledge of stone bowl and crossed her arms, "so why have you brought us here? There is a reason for that hike in the sun I suppose? Other than the fact you felt we needed exercise"  
Jack looked away from her, staring in front of him with a set face and sombre eyes,  
"There's a reason right enough."  
He nodded to where the shape of the shadows ahead of them changed and the line of pillars became a circle,  
"In there. What we have come for is in there."

***

"So you lost sight of her?" Admiral Norrington sounded unsurprised.  
"Yes sir. If one were a fanciful man it would seem that the sea itself conspired to make it so."  
Hathaway's voice was expressionless but the Admiral gave him a wary look anyway.  
"Bringing us back to my nephew's journal again," he said eventually, "Davy Jones might well intervene for the Black Pearl, certainly if Sparrow does have some hold over him. He will know better than any one what that ship means to Sparrow, if the stories are true."  
"If they are and if he does," Hathaway agreed. He paused for a moment recalling how bizarre that story was, then he shrugged, "but little else makes sense. The Dutchman certainly joined with the Black Pearl to destroy Beckett, all the reports agree on that, and I cannot see Jones doing so without some form of coercion. But there has been no sight of the Dutchman since that day, and certainly we saw nothing of her. If Jones is aiding Sparrow then it is covertly and not in the open manner that he helped Beckett."

Admiral Norrington thought about that for a moment. Outside the sounds of life told of the normal day to day struggles for existence, hawkers shouted in the market place, animals lowed, children shouted, and all that against the backdrop of the sound of wood being sawn and goods being moved. The familiar hum of life, its reassuring presence reminding the pair that, for most people, such a conversation as theirs would appear nothing short of lunacy. Yet the dead of Beckett's madness still lay in the mass graves, the undeniable marker of a carnage created for no other reason than to cause a song to be sung, or so James journal had suggested. What had his nephew made of that? The law set aside so that a rag tag fleet of pirates would be gathered, hundreds dead so that one man could remove the last barriers to his control of the sea and the untold wealth that might have brought him.

The admiral pushed that thought aside, James was dead and that could not be changed.  
"My nephew implied that Jones had no love for Sparrow, less even than he had for most people, though he seemed to be unclear as to why that might be. If he was right about that then it seems unlikely that Jones would render Jack Sparrow any aid by choice. Except to spite Beckett perhaps, but he is dead."  
Hathaway nodded,  
"Maybe so, and I do not claim that Jones himself aided the Black Pearl to escape us, only that the luck of wind and sea seemed more than usually on their side."  
Norrington sipped his tea as he considered that, then he shrugged,  
"Sparrow has the reputation of being a lucky man, though my reading of him is that he is as clever as he is lucky. Do you think that he is at the helm of the Black Pearl after all?"  
Hathaway shook his head,  
"No sir, it would make me less uneasy if I did. Though I wouldn't have expected her to behave so strangely if he had been in command, unless some of the wilder stories about him are true and he is indeed mad."  
The admiral shrugged again and set down his tea cup with a scrape,  
"There are stories aplenty about him of course, and many of them would give a prudent man cause for thought. Most have been embellished by the tellers for their own purposes no doubt, but maybe not as much as might be imagined in some cases."  
He sat back and laced his fingers, frowning at the tea cup as if it had offended him,  
" But I take it that you are referring to the stories of his death. You might indeed expect a man returning from death to be a little mad, but surely those stories at least cannot be true? My nephew made no mention of them."  
The Admiral's brow contracted for a moment remembering some of the things his nephew had said in his most private journal. He shook his head,  
"No, those at least must be falsehoods. Jones I will believe in because James says he existed and Groves claims to have seen him, and therefore I have to; but the idea of men returning from the dead cannot be true. If that were so then everything we believe in would be so much sand and there would be no truth to steer by at all!"

Hathaway shifted uneasily in his chair,  
"With respect sir I am not sure that is not the case now. Aztec curses and undead sailors! What your nephew speaks of is enough to call much of what we hold dear into question, and that is only what he writes, what he implies is even more uncomfortable."  
The Admiral nodded wearily,  
"I know, and I wonder how much that experience explains James strange attitude to Sparrow and the loss of the Dauntless. My nephew was a conventional man, a good man but blinkered in some ways. He never doubted the church or God or duty and his experiences with Sparrow and then Beckett must have tested those assumptions sorely. He set so much store by the beliefs of society, and his position within it, that seeing it challenged in that way must have been a grave shock. One from which a man such as James would not easily recover. "  
"Unlike yourself sir?" Hathaway asked curiously, knowing that he was pushing beyond the bounds of naval etiquette and somehow unconcerned by the fact.

The admiral shot him a wry glance. How could he explain that he had been brought up to trust the words and laws of man very little while James had been fed on stories of honour and chivalry? He couldn't, though Captain Hathaway of all men might understand the distinction. But he had another answer that would meet the need, so he used it.  
"I've served in most corners of the world, unlike James, and I've seen too much in my time to have trust in the certainty of anything Captain Hathaway." He gave the other man a measuring look then smiled faintly, "in that I am much like yourself I suspect. Seen service in the East have you not? Sailed out of the African stations too?"  
Hathaway nodded briefly, and the admiral continued with a half smile,  
"We will both have encountered things that are not easily reconciled with the assumptions of the Church and polite society then."  
"Yes sir, for myself I have."  
Norrington nodded,  
"Thought so, but James had sailed in more conventional waters. Europe mainly before he was posted here. Most of his command was spent chasing pirates or attending functions with the Governor, neither of which would broaden his mind noticeably, at least until Sparrow crossed his path. I doubt that he had ever met anyone of that ilk before, for James was not a man to fraternise with locals or seek cheap liaisons on the waterfronts. Might have been easier for him if he had."  
Hathaway thought of that for a moment, recalling some of the things he had done and seen in name of king and country and wondered if that was the case. Perhaps, but then again when faced with Beckett and Jones, how much better would he have been prepared?  
"That may well be true sir, " he said eventually.

Outside there was the sound of a canon being discharged and both men half rose, turning anxiously to the window, but the sound of an officers voice raised in anger reassured them and they resumed their seats. As they did so the admiral shot him a considering look and then reached for his teacup again, speaking over its rim,  
"You knew Sparrow."  
It was a statement, though he could not be sure, but Hathaway had spoken of the man in terms that implied such knowledge.

The captain was silent for a moment, occupying the time with sipping his rapidly cooling tea; finally he put the cup down with a snap as if making a painful decision,  
"Not recently sir, but you are right in thinking that I had met him; I did and in the same way that I had met Beckett. At the same place and time in fact." His mouth twisted and he sighed, "Seems a lifetime ago now, but it is not something I am proud of and it changed the course of my career, and by chance it set me on my current path."  
"In the Indies then?"  
"Yes. In the Indies."  
He drew a deep breath, as if armouring himself against some expected pain,  
"I was there when Jack Sparrow became a pirate."

***

'This must have been some form of inner sanctum', Elanor thought as she followed Jack between the pillars. Another space, a part of the wider avenue and yet separated from it. In its' heyday there might have been drapes of bright silks and filmy linen to complete the separation but now there were only piles of sand and deeper shadows. Beneath the dust there were traces of the elaborate floor that would once have echoed the glory of the pillars, but, like their carving, most of it was long gone. What remained had a skeletal look, as if the blasting wind and sand had stripped of its plumage and flesh leaving only bones behind.

Behind her the three crewmen were dragging their feet, unwilling to cross into the deeper shadows. But Jack was moving with confidence and seemingly without fear of ambush as he stepped through them and into the centre of the circle. Elanor followed, keeping her hands close to her weapons; Jack might not be concerned about attack but he was far from being unafraid, his exagerated swagger and the stiffness in his back told her that. But he would have to be a fool to be unafraid here, even now, and he was not that.

This was not an easy place she decided, the darkness cast by the ring of pillars had a red edge to it and the air seemed to weigh more than it should, making her lungs unwilling to swallow too much of it at a time. Somewhere above her there was the hum of insects and the glittering of birds wings, and off to the side she saw a lizard scuttle away in outrage at their intrusion. Now it belonged to the insects and the lizards but once it had been a human place, for there was a raised stone dais in the centre holding two stone blocks that might have been ceremonial chairs, thrones even. Built for human purposes certainly, though probably not one meant for comfort. Even now it was clear that this was a place of power and ceremony, not a place for friend or family. A sacred place maybe, a home of priestesses and priests. Or a place of law, of judgement perhaps, or one of learning, or even healing. It was impossible to tell now, whatever force and power it had represented had fallen to dust long ago.

So why were they here?

Jack had cast just one glance at the stone thrones as he passed them, and he seemed to know what they were, but the look had been deeply distrustful and more than a little sad. Then he had squatted and pulled at another raised stone on the floor, a square of several feet across and that looked to be too heavy for a single man to move. Elanor flexed a beckoning finger at the reluctant Raggetti and they both moved across to help him, but by the time they got there the stone was sliding smoothly away leaving a shallow depression open at her feet.  
'Jack and holes in the ground!' she thought, 'what the hell can we expect from this one?'

Raggeti looked terrified, and that itself was a disturbing sight.

Jack struck a flint and lit the candle he had pulled from the depths of a coat pocket, shining it around then leaning back with a look of outraged disgust as a snake and couple of scorpion like insects scuttled away, their pincers raised in threat. He swept the candle round one last time, then apparently satisfied no other threats lurked in the hole, and with an expression of distaste, he reached inside.

***

Hathaway seemed to hesitate but the Admiral held his tongue and waited, the suddenly heavy silence broken only by the familiar noises of the fort outside. But it seemed the other man was lost in the memory and needed some prompting and Norrington stirred uneasily in his chair,  
"Hmmp." He buried his nose deeper into his cup, "The business with the slaves I assume."  
That sent a jolt through Hathaway,  
"You know of it?" he asked in surprise.  
"I know, was told of it before I came here. Nasty business all around it seems. Slavery is legal enough so Beckett was within his rights but......"  
"As you say sir, but....."  
Norrington nodded his understanding and settled deeper in his chair, preparing to listen.  
"So what do you know of it?"

Hathaway stirred uneasily as if a cold chill had moved across him and his eyes slipped passed the admiral to the window behind, their focus shifting as if looking into a far distance. It was clear that he rarely spoke of the events and was not happy doing so now. Norrington, a humane and compassionate man, and knowing what he did, was not surprised when the other man's words came with some effort,  
"I was a young marine, it was early in the companies ventures in that part of the world and they frequently called for military support. The populace did not like them, and it's fair to say that the arrival of Cutler Beckett a year or so before had not improved matters, though he was a very junior man at the time."  
He paused for a moment as if steeling himself for something unpleasant,  
" I was sent to the cells one day to assist with a prisoner. I don't know what I had expected, if anything, but it wasn't what I found."  
He fiddled with his saucer, aligning the pattern with the one on his cup as if trying not to think about the picture his own words conjured.  
" The man being held there was no usual felon or drunken lout but a young sea captain, a merchant man who had transported our troop around the coast ssome months before. He'd seemed a fair man, and talented, very young to hold such a captaincy, but he did and by his own right. Unusual even then I'll grant you, though less unusual perhaps amongst the merchant fleet. But he was an odd man, certainly singular for one of his years. Not much given to drinking or whoring when ashore, but cheerful enough and always calm and well mannered; polite, even to the native populace and well thought of by most who knew him. When we had sailed with him he had spent his evenings aboard reading theology and philosophy, in the Latin no less, and I had been told that he had something of a flair for languages and a taste for poetry."  
Hathaway smiled slightly, memory heavy in his eyes,  
"Not a man I would ever have expected to find the cells. But there he was, unkempt and shackled and apparently destined for the gallows."

The captain swallowed hard, his mind travelling back across the years trying to find the man he had been then.  
"I didn't know his crime, not then. Nor what was in store for him. But when they brought the brazier to the cell.. Well then I knew, though I found it hard to believe. The room was hot as hell and we were all sweating even before we saw the iron."  
Hathaway took another swallow of his tea,  
"We all knew it was done of course but I doubt many of us gave much thought to what was involved, I certainly hadn't. But to see it there and know what they were going to do to someone you had known, however briefly, and had thought an honest man, well I'd be lying to say it wasn't a shock. Yet I wouldn't have thought so much of it if Beckett hadn't been lounging in the corner. But he was and the look in his eyes made my bile rise even before the iron was lifted from the embers."

Admiral Norrington cleared his throat,  
"There had been stories." was all he said.  
Hathaway realised then that his commander knew more than he might be expected to, but he was too lost in memory to think that strange. His mouth twisted in disgust,  
"Oh yes, there had been stories. Yet Beckett and Sparrow had been friends of a sort, certainly on more than nodding acquaintance. Though not perhaps such good friends as Beckett would have liked. It was common gossip that Jack Sparrow had become something of an obsession with him almost as soon as they met. Beckett was not liked by the ranks, he was an arrogant upstart even then, and there was a lot of ribald comment about it in the barracks. In such a closed community his tastes were hard to hide, and you know how the navy views such matters. Of course Beckett was only a junior company man at the time, though he was rising fast, and there was little to quell the gossip. "  
He took another sip of tea, memory flooding back, the hard, dry air, the flies and the red heat of the coals seeming to come alive in the room,  
"Yes, there were some unpleasant rumours about Beckett and his appetites even then, and this is fifteen or more years ago, stories that he had been sent away by his respectable family to escape unspecified embarrassing incidents. Not unlike stories of Sparrow's own past in fact, or rather his father's. But most men had some respect for Jack and little interest in where he had come from. The sympathy was all with the sailor and it was generally felt that Captain Sparrow would do well not to turn his back when Beckett was around. Slander maybe, just barrack room gossip, I certainly thought so at first, but later.... then .... well it made some sort of horrible sense. Seeing him there, the look on his face, suddenly I had no doubt that it was true."

The silence stretched but this time Norrington waited patiently until Hathaway spoke again.  
"To Beckett Sparrow must have seemed unbearably romantic of course, particularly with the whispered stories of his origins. Educated, competent, aloof and yet well liked. Popular in fact, and always welcomed wherever he went, not tolerated as Beckett was. He must have seemed the embodiment of all a stolid merchant son wished to be, and he looked the part too, even then. Jack Sparrow was a fine looking young man, almost beautiful in some ways, and it was true that he had many admirers, and not all of them ladies. But he was manly enough and none of the men doubted where his interests lay, nor his ambitions; he was betrothed to the second daughter of a rich merchant and seemed set fair for a successful and profitable life, whatever the truth of his background."  
Norrington shifted slightly in his chair,  
"Hmm, and then came the slave business."  
Hathaway retained his far away look but he nodded,  
"As you say sir, then came the slave business."

He drew a deep breath,  
"I didn't know of it at the time, only that Saprrow had been accused of theft on the high seas and that made him a pirate. But seeing Beckett with the magistrate, the foppish merchant lounging in that cell with his pet bureaucrat, a man obviously ill at ease and wanting to be somewhere else, I suddenly wondered what the matter was really all about. Later, when I heard the full story, I was appalled. Whatever the legalities of it the business it was a matter of conscience too. To use the brand in such circumstances! To throw him outside of the law, to make him a pirate, an outlaw with no hope of return to lawful society! That spoke of something more than lost profit, it reeked of spite and disappointment. For Beckett must have known what he was doing."  
Norrington frowned,  
"Beckett claimed that Sparrow was in league with pirates even then didn't he?"  
"Yes he did, which put together with the stories of Sparrow's past and Beckett's position, made the outcome inescapable. But Beckett had a magistrate in his pocket anyway and the whole business was a farce. Sparrow was guilty in the eyes of the law and the company of theft but I doubt that anyone would have done much more than throw him in jail for a week or so if Beckett hadn't pursued the matter. It was Beckett who demanded the branding, even though he must have known what he was doing to a man he had called a friend. There could be no future for Sparrow after that and Beckett knew it. If he had been born of a pirate and put the life behind him then it was a more than usually cruel punishment."

"And what was your involvement in the matter?"  
Hathaway squirmed, there was no other word for it, and the Admiral had to guard his face to hide the surprise, for he had never seen this man look anything other than blandly self possessed, but there was no denying the self disgust in that calm face at this moment.  
"I had never held a man while they used the iron before, I was unprepared for the sound or for the terrible smell. Sparrow said nothing even as they did it, how he held back the screams I cannot say but he did, just looked at his once friend and didn't utter a sound. But me...." He shot the admiral an apologetic look. "I vomited over Cutler Beckett."

***

"A horn." Elanor said flatly as she looked at the dirty yet graceful object held carefully in Jack's dusty hands. "You have brought us here for a musical instrument? Why?"

Jack stroked the dust and sand from the surface of the object revealing something golden beneath the dirt. The sight of it brought the three crewmen clustering closer and Jack twitched it away and into the shelter of his arms as if he expected one or other of them to make a grab for it. Maybe he did for Raggtti in particular followed the movement with a covetous eye, all his earlier anxiety apparently forgotten.  
"Not for the instrument Captain Cavendish," he said with careful politeness, "for the sound of it. Or more exactly the people that the sound of it will summon."  
"People?" she queried with raised brows.  
"Aye, people. The ones who might have the answer to the vexatious question of ails Barbossa. Amongst other things."  
That rider sent Elanor's back hair on end for she doubted it was a meaningless comment. She caught his eye and knew that it was very meaningful indeed. But she got no chance to challenge him about it for his words had got through to the three men.  
"Tis beyond man's ken is that, so these people.... they would be very powerful would they?" Raggetti asked, looking nervous again.  
Jack gave him a grim smile and spoke softly,  
"They are that true enough," he hesitated for a moment as if struck by a contradictory thought, then he shrugged, " leastways some of them are."  
"And it's those that this will call is it?" Elanor said without expression, making a note to ask him about his earlier remark at her first opportunity, "assuming they can hear it."  
"They'll hear it right enough, trust me on that."  
He was wiping the mouthpiece on his coat tails as he spoke and none of them could see his expression.

Finally satisfied that it was clean as he needed it to be, or that he had his face under full control, he crossed to the stone dais and positioned himself carefully before one of the stone thrones, apparently placing his feet with great care. Then he placed the horn to his lips, drew a deep breath, closed his eyes as if in a prayer, and blew.


	9. Chapter 9

**Voyages of the Dawn Chaser**

**Voyage Three - Lucifers Sword**

**Chapter 9 Naught but Ghosts**

It was an anticlimax of course, but then it had to be, for this sand marooned and ruined building housed no one any longer, and it was miles from anywhere other than the shore. Yet even though that was the case there was still a moment of blood tingling and hair raising trepidation as the mournful note echoes around the broken splendour. Dust motes and fine grains of sand shimmered on the vibrating air as it curled its way towards both the desert and the sea, and for a moment it seemed as if that shimmer would conjure something unseen from the very rock itself. But it didn't and as the note died away the dust settled leaving things as they had been before.

As Jack took the horn from his lips and bent down to lay it back in its burrow Elanor looked at him with raised brows  
"And now?" she asked  
He didn't reply as he slid the stone back into place, nor when he dusted his hands and stood up. His eyes darted around the surrounding desolation as if reassuring himself that it was just that, watching the shadows and the play of what light there was as he wiped his hands on his sash. The seconds stretched and Elanor opened her mouth to ask again but stopped when he turned and cast her a serious look,  
"Now we wait."

It was the only answer he offered and with it said he took himself off to the stump of a nearby column and sat down, cross-legged, as if preparing to meditate. The other men cast him a wary glance, their disappointment clear, but they remained silent. Elanor however was less willing to accept what he chose to tell, and with a gesture of impatience she crossed to stand before him,  
"What, exactly, are we waiting for?"  
Jack's mouth tightened with annoyance for a moment then he carefully and ostentatiously made himself relax and smiled a false smile,  
"People."  
Elanor suppressed a sigh,  
"Well I suppose we should be grateful that you didn't suggest we were waiting for the dead." Her own smile was equally false.  
"No luv, they are definitely living." His smile was now definitely condescending.  
Elanor noted that with interest, briefly wondered what he was hiding this time that he used such a distraction technique, and sat down beside him, pushing him aside to make room. Jack glared for a moment at the insistent pressure of her thigh against his and then shrugged and gave way.

"How can you be sure they will hear it? There was no sign of any habitation for miles around us," she asked calmly as she settled herself as comfortably as possible on the stone, ignoring his wary yet affronted glance.  
He looked away from her,  
"They will hear believe me. The horn always brings them. Been their duty for centuries to come when the horn sounds."  
"Why?"  
"Don't know and nor do they, least ways they don't seem to. But they come."  
"Assuming they hear it."  
"They will."  
"How can you be sure?"  
"Because they always do."  
"Which brings us back to how, doesn't it?"  
Jack glowered at her for a moment and then he looked towards the other men, indicating that they should step back out of earshot with a flick of his fingers. It said a lot that they obeyed without any hesitation, though she wasn't entirely sure just who, or what, it said a lot about.

When they had retreated far enough for their captain's satisfaction he leaned his head closer to Elanor's and whispered,  
"Because the dead make sure that they do."

***

Norrington let his mind drift back to his nephew, and to his own anger at the man who had brought such destruction on him; at least as he had saw it. James might well have seen it differently.

It had never seemed odd to James 's uncle that he had not for a moment blamed Sparrow for his nephews fall, the pirate was what circumstances had made him, and within the confines of that he was as good a man as many and a far better one than he might have been. Admiral Norrington had seen too much warfare and suffering, too much blood and politics and treachery to believe in heroes any longer or even in abstract virtues, and far too much to blame a man for trying to stay alive. Nor did he believe, as James had, in self-evident truths, and had not done so for many years.

He, like James, had been born to a deeply devout family and while his belief in God's mercy had never wavered in all his years of service to the crown his understanding of men's right to that mercy had long ago shifted from the simple truths of his boyhood. James, in his own rigid honour, might have believed man's law indivisible from God's law but his uncle had long ago lost such comforts. Perhaps if his past had allowed him more ease with the idea of slavery then he would have had less compassion for Sparrow, but it did not.

For a moment the Admiral wondered if James had ever known the truth of Sparrow's past and what he would have made of it if he had. What answer would James have given to that dilemma? The truth of it was that he was that he was glad that he didn't know, for he was not as sure of his nephew's judgement as he once had been. He couldn't imagine the staunchly honourable James as seeing Beckett's actions as justifiable, but then maybe he was that he didn't want to. After all James had handed the heart to Beckett and he must have seen the risks of that, whatever the man was.

Beckett, the damned man had done so much damage to so many that the Admiral found it difficult to do the simple Christian duty of praying for his soul. On that silent admission he realised that Hathaway was staring at him and he dragged himself back to their conversation.  
"Beckett was not an honest man," he said slowly wondering just how honest he should about what he knew. "Though it can never be proved now, and probably couldn't have been so then, it seems likely that the slave dealing was a private transaction; and likely too that Beckett had borrowed company money to finance it, and without the proper permissions. He was not rich then but he was ambitious and greedy, it would seem probable that Sparrow's actions would have left him exposed to the risk of ridicule if nothing less. He would not have forgiven that."  
Hathaway nodded,  
"He had that reputation even then, or rather a reputation for being ruthless where his own interest was concerned. The merchant's son with the hunger for something more elevated, he was something of a figure a fun because as a result. It was a common joke that he got down on his knees and prayed each night for a peerage."  
He smiled slightly and shook his head.  
" Why Sparrow would have taken such a man for a friend I don't know, but then he was something of an outsider too and he must have been a lonely young man in many ways, given the rumours of his past and with so few people with which to share his interests."  
The admiral frowned, recalling the gossip around St James,  
" Beckett no doubt had other motives for any offers of friendship, and maybe not only Sparrow's person. Perhaps he had thought to use those dubious connections Sparrow was supposed to have to his own advantage, only to discover that the young captain was somewhat more honourable and mindful of the law than he was himself."

Hathaway nodded and sighed and slipped back into the past again,  
"But on this one occasion he persuaded his friend to be a little less scrupulous about the regulations and it cost him dearly. It was not a pretty sight, seeing Beckett there in the cells in his satin and lace. But it was not that, it was that he had so much....... glee, there is no other word to describe it, in his demeanour. He took so much pleasure in telling Sparrow how his fiancé and her family had repudiated him on hearing of his actions. I doubt that Sparrow had really expected anything else, but he must have hoped and hearing it in such a place and in such a way..."  
His voice faded as more memories came to him, the knowledge of what else might have awaited Sparrow in that cell and the truth that he would have done nothing to stop it. The admiral might have guessed for looked down at his hands with a bitter expression,  
"Yes there was a streak of the sadist in him, James journal makes that abundantly clear. He was well matched with Jones."

Norrington rose suddenly, as if the chair he sat in had offended him in some way, crossing to stand before the window with his hands clasped behind his back. A small forest of masts rose and fell with the tide while on the ramparts new lines of canon had appeared, the mistakable signs of a war being planned for. His hands tightened as he thought of what might yet be Beckett's last legacy.  
"Speaking of whom, the Spanish have been demanding again. War may soon be upon us."

***

For a long time they waited in silence, only the slowly shifting shadows giving any hint of the passage of the sun above them. Jack gave no sign of how long he expected to wait, or what might happen if no one came, instead he seemed to have drawn in on himself, eyes closed hands resting lightly on his knees. Though never far from his pistol Elanor noticed.

She was not sure at which point the sounds of wind blown sand became something else, nor when the blurring of the shadows stopped following the sun, but at some point she was aware that Jack's attention had become focussed on the world around them again and looked for the reason. Then she noticed the faint sound of voices on the air and saw the outline of figures in the dusty light.

There were ten of them, at least there were ten that she could count, or thought she could. In the uncertain light their shapes were blurred and oddly elongated, their shoulders wider than their hips, their necks long, their heads cone shaped. They moved with a strangely boneless walk, not a glide yet not a step either, their outlines fixed, 'like wooden dolls moved on wheels' she found herself thinking. Her hand strayed briefly to her belt and opened Ariadne's eyes, the movement was too small to be noticed by anyone who did not know to look.

Jack straightened and then rose, adopting a now familiar posture, balancing on the balls of his feet, throwing back his shoulders and resting his hands on his pistol. She could feel the fear rolling off him but his pose was one of arrogant command, an actor readying himself to play his scene she realised, and wondered, not for the first time, what he was thinking as he pulled the mask into place.  
"Told you." he muttered as he passed her, and then took a couple of swaggering steps towards the advancing shadows.

Those shadows took on more detail as they drifted to a stop at the edge of the ring of columns. They gathered in a group, three in the centre the others surrounding them. All looking towards Jack, ignoring the muttering men who had withdrawn back into the shadows, and apparently not seeing the woman who was standing not arms length from his shoulder.

Somewhere a lamp was lit, throwing the shadows into sharp relief and sending honeyed light spilling across the space between the standing stones.

The strange shapes now became clearer, the broad shoulders were explained by the elaborate and stiffened collars of their woven gowns, the intricate pleating of their tunics blurring the shape of the body beneath, while the cone like heads were due to nothing more than the round yet flat topped headdresses each one of them wore, head gear that looked like ropes of clay wound upon themselves, like children's pots made of plasticine. Seven of the ten were dressed in earthy colours, their robes a mix of browns and ochre and sandy reds, and their collars and headdresses the dark grey of half baked river mud. But the centre three were different, their clothing was the pale straw white of unbleached linen and their collars and headdresses were dark silver metal studded with blue and green pebbles.

Elanor was not surprised when Jack moved closer and addressed these three, but there was no knowing what he said for the language was as strange as the place and the people. All she could say, and she was unsure of how she knew this much, was that the words were old.

He spoke for little more than ten seconds but whatever he said made its mark for the three inclined their heads as if in agreement and came down the space between the columns in a slow progression, their eyes never leaving him. Finally they reached the three stone chairs and there they did turn away, positioning themselves carefully before sitting down in perfect unison, each taking up the same position, back straight, head up, their hands resting on their laps.

Drawing a deep breath Jack stepped forward to face them.

***

In the cabin of the Black Pearl Barbossa stirred for the first time in days. Nothing more than a flicker of a look in the wide and staring eyes, and the twitch of a muscle at the corner of the unsmiling mouth, yet just for a second he was something more than a living corpse. But there was no one there to see it. Barbossa had become as much a thing as the bed he lay on to the crew, only those charged with seeing to his few remaining needs ever coming closer than the cabin door.

The shadows that surrounded him did not move or lighten, nor did the weight of sorrow that pinned him to the blackness of this void ease, and yet it was as if a faint hint of a breeze moved over him. On that whisper of air there came the hazy memory of light and a world beyond grief and despair. In this place there was no time to judge the length of the memory by but when it was gone it left behind it a feeling that he could not put a name to, the hope that darkness might not be eternal after all

***

Jack's second speech, as incomprehensible as his first, was somewhat longer and was accompanied by many gestures with hand and arm, some of which encompassed his companions and the world beyond this ruin. The gestures, like the words, were met with silence. But it seemed to Elanor that the three were now watching Jack very closely indeed, and not only Jack for she caught the occasional darting glance in her own direction. What was he saying to them?

When he finally fell silent he looked around the three as if expecting some response but they remained silent. Jack quirked his brows and drew a deep breath then launched into speech once more, this time pacing the floor before the three stone thrones, hair and sash swirling as he turned. This third burst of speech brought a response of sorts for the three looked at each other as if seeking advice. For some reason she couldn't put a name to Elanor had the feeling that they were speaking, but within the privacy of their heads. Jack certainly watched them as if he thought something similar for his eyes flickered between them as if listening to a conversation. For an absurd moment she wondered if he could hear their thoughts.

After a minute or so of this silent commune the centre one rose and approached Jack, placing her hand, for Elanor thought this was a woman, upon his shoulder and staring into his face as if reading a message there. Jack flinched and leant away, but when the thin and fine boned hand grasped his chin he did not resist but stood and allowed the scrutiny. Then for the first time the woman, if that was what it was, spoke.

The language sounded the same as the one Jack had used but the accent was very different, the sounds rolling more smoothly and with a back of the mouth burr that had been absent from Jack's efforts. Yet the voice was husky too, as if rarely used, but with a resonance that seemed to set the dust in the air dancing again.

Elanor saw Jack's shoulders rise and fall in a sigh and he leant away from the figure before him, but the hand held his face firm, forcing him to look back, to meet the eyes looking into his so intensely. Finally he seemed to sag and nodded his head as if in reluctant acceptance. Only then did the woman look her way, removing her hand from his face and tucking it back into the depths of her trumpet shaped sleeve. The one to her right moved then, drawing a purse from its belt, dipping a similarly thin hand into the contents then scattering them on the floor before the chairs. The one to her left watched then did the same; Jack shrugged in resignation and took his flint from his pocket, striking a light before stooping and setting the light to what ever it was that had been scattered at his feet.

For a moment nothing happened and then there was a flare and the hiss of dried wood and leaf taking light. A faint ribbon of smoke rose as the flare spread along the length of the scattering, the ribbon growing thicker and darker.  
'too much smoke for what is burning' Elanor found herself thinking as it curled its way around the three and Jack.  
In the shadows behind them other shapes seemed to stir, the smoke dividing and multiplying, collecting drifts of itself from nowhere. Shapes formed within it, then shifted and faded to reform again. The sense of voices on the air returned and she was aware of a strange certainty that more than the people she could see were here and listening.

Suddenly the place was full of things that could only be described as ghosts and with their coming time itself seemed to roll back.

Elanor stood transfixed as the ruin rebuilt itself around her, the sand rising to reform the stone it had once been part of, the blasted walls reclaiming their fallen plaster and paint from the dust motes on the air, gilding coalescing from the shadows to line the restored stone bowls and shallow niches. Light grew, the glow of a thousand lamps eating at the shadows and setting the colour in the frescos glowing, picking out the bright iridescent scales of the fish that swam lazily in the perfumed waters. The scent of rose and jasmine rolled in on the breeze that stirred the silk of the hangings and the fine linen of the drapes. The smoke drifted over the mosaic of the floor coaxing pictures from it, bright scenes from forests and seas the like of which had not been seen for millennia.

The three still stood on the dais with Jack before them as the smoke curled and the place recalled its past, but the chairs were now truly thrones, their surfaces gilded and their seats backed with fine wood rests, carved and painted like the columns, and lined with cushions in bright silks. Elanor turned and looked behind her, the wide and frightened eyes of the three crew men told her they were also seeing something strange, but she was not sure they saw the same thing.

But more important than that were the others, for beyond the crew men were outlined a throng of people dressed in braided and pleated robes with oiled and plaited chignons of black or copper coloured hair, their necks and wrists decked with necklaces and bangles of bright coloured beads set in twisted metal. It was their voices she could hear on the air, the low chant they intoned a faint hum that set the stone pillars vibrating.

She turned back to face the three. Now she could see them more clearly, two women and a man. Tall and serene in appearance, their robes less cumbersome now, for the homespun bulk was gone and the fabric seemed finely woven and elegantly draped. The cone shaped headdresses now showed themselves as elaborate hair arrangements, silken tresses wound upon one another and bound by golden cords and elaborate combs. Unlike the crowd they wore no other jewellery, but a faint tracery was etched upon their skins in gold and silver dyes. As she looked at them she realised that their eyes were not human, in fact they had no eyes at all just almond shaped sockets that were filled with light, and it was this light that fed the lamps that flickered all around them.

But she was not afraid. Maybe she did not believe that any of this was real, or maybe it was a sense of the absence of evil or harm that reassured her and kept her heart to a steady beat. It only flickered when she looked across at Jack, for though the men he had brought with him were unchanged, he was not. He was recognisable enough, but the braids and ropes were gone from his hair and it hung thick and shining to his waist, without other ornament and bound only by one of those golden cords around his brow. The plaited beard was much the same but the beads were different colours and the braids were threaded with gold and silver; as he turned his head, looking from one to another, she saw and his neck was etched with patterns in the same silver and gold. He seemed to be dressed as they were too, in pale and pleated linen and silks. Yet, for all that, somehow he looked as right and natural in the strange attire as she had ever seen him look. Even the rings on his fingers looked to be a part of the whole. While the other crewmen seemed a gross intrusion from a world that had no place here, Jack looked as if he belonged.

Idly she wondered why that might be, was it because of whatever had happened when last he was here? Or because of some unknown characteristic of the man, or was it something to do with the water of life?

She could not know but somehow she was not surprised when she looked down at her own hand and saw the fall of silk across her wrist and same tracery upon her skin.

Jack was talking again, and the three were listening with apparent interest. When he paused they nodded and stepped away from him, crossing to one of the water filled bowls leaving him standing behind them. They arranged themselves around it, linked hands and stared down into the gold flecked contents. The light from their eye sockets seemed to grow brighter finding the flakes of gold and setting then aflame, fires seemed to course across the silver and gold trails upon their skins causing them to glow as if lit from within.

Behind them the chorus of the massed spectators grew in pitch and volume, the sound setting the draperies shivering and the stone humming. Elanor felt the vibration spread out beneath her feet and looked down, realising that the floor no longer seemed solid but that it had transformed into a sheet of liquid glass with space and stars beneath it. Here and there the scenes and pictures it had shown before remained as islands in the flow, but no longer fixed, instead each scene had become a window into another life or world. She felt dizzy just looking at it, and dragged her eyes back to the three people, if that's what they were, grouped around the bowl.

The were speaking now though she could not hear the words, even though the crowds behind her had fallen silent. But those words were enough to fill the space with sound just as their eyes were filling it with light.

Jack was staring at them, his eyes black and shadowed, and with the hint of a frown on his brow. It occurred to her that she saw dismay in his face, but acceptance too. She moved towards him, some part of her mind surprised that she could move, while another registered the sudden familiarity of the feel of the silk and linen robe rippling around her. She passed by the three without them appearing to notice and caught at his arm,  
"Jack?" her voice sounded strange and wrong in the echoes of this place. "Jack what is it? Do they know?"  
He looked at her and smiled an ironic smile,  
"Oh yes, they know. Pity really but there it is. We asked, they told and now we have no choice."  
"There's always a choice." she heard herself say.  
He smiled again,  
"Aye that's true enough, but some choices are no choice at all."  
She looked at him for a long moment recalling with sudden clarity a remark he had made to her when he first told her his story,  
"When they involve things a man cannot do?" it was a question but not one that need an answer for his look said it all. But he answered anyway, he nodded,  
"When they involve things a man cannot do."

Elanor felt a burning need to know more, opened her mouth to demand to know more, but before she could speak she felt a hand grasp her shoulder and she was turned around to find the three standing behind her. The centre woman was holding her and thought the grip was too firm to escape without some effort it didn't hurt. The light from the woman's eyes did though, yet Elanor found that she couldn't close her own eyes nor look away. The chanting had begun again and the sound and the light seemed to grow, taking over all the space in the world. The woman spoke to her then, her words drawing shadow pictures in Elanor's mind, half memories, half imaginings. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jack's hand reach for her and she heard his voice, raised to match the woman's, explaining or protesting she couldn't tell which.

Then suddenly it was dark.

***

Hours later it might have been that Elanor was aware of a rock pressing into her back and a cramp in her foot.

She raised her head and looked around her but the place she thought she had seen was gone and the one that was left was once again a desolate and sand blown ruin. It was dark now, no light at all except for the flickering glow from a fire somewhere off to her right. Slowly, and with some wincing, she turned her head and looked in that direction. It was a fire right enough, a small one, flames drifting in the occasional blasts of air coming down between the columns. Jack was sitting to one side of it and the three figures he had summoned were sitting on the other side. The grandur was gone and once again they were dressed in homespun robes and their headdresses had the crude look of a child's attempt at pottery.

Elanor drew a deep breath and turned her head to kook the other way. In the shadows of one of the broken plinths the three crewmen were sprawled in apparent sleep, and judging by their posture they were going to ache as much as she did when they awoke. In another corner the ones who had come with the three were also seated, but with much greater ease, and occupied in some strange game of counters, the board drawn in the dust and sand.

The movement of her head, or the sudden intake of breath, drew Jack's eyes to her and with a muttered word to the three he rose and came across. He squatted beside her and spoke in a low voice,  
"It's dark now. Not safe to return to the ship, not till dawn. Not safe for them to return to their village either," he stroked his whiskers thoughtfully, "at least if it's a village that they come from. Never got a straight answer to that out of them. Either ways we need share this place with them for an hour or so longer so I'd be pleased if you'd not wake me crew. They are likely to be less trouble while they are asleep."  
"They are going to hurt like hell when they wake Jack!" she protested quietly.  
He gave her a warning look,  
"They'll not hurt as much as they will do if they wake and make a nuisance of themselves here." He dropped his voice still lower, "It may have slipped your notice but we are somewhat outnumbered."  
"It hadn't. But surely they wouldn't do anything stupid?"  
Her words faded away in the face of Jack's raised brows and incredulous look.

He said nothing more on that subject instead going off on another tangent entirely,  
"Don't recall them bringing so many of them last time." He muttered. "Can't be anything I did but something may have happened since. Either ways I'd rather we didn't do anything to wear out our welcome. Never know when we might need their assistance again."  
"Why would we?"  
"Can't say for sure, hope not. Hope I never have to come here again, but I thought that last time, and I was mistook wasn't I?"

Elanor shot a wary look to the three by the fire but they seemed occupied by their own thoughts. Jack caught her look and huffed a little sitting down beside her and handling her a water bottle,  
"You'll be thirsty" he said, "know I was."  
He was right but she kept her eyes on the silent three as she drank. Jack saw and smiled his approval,  
"Nothing to be concerned about. As long as the men behave they'll not play us false. We've got nothing of interest to them."  
"Not even the ships?"  
"Specially not the ships. They cannot leave here even if they wanted to. Though I doubt it ever crosses their mind. Strange I'll grant when they live so close to the sea, and freedom." he looked down in sudden uncertainty and frowned, "Well assuming that they do that is. Not knowing where they live."

Behind them the three stared into the fire and the shadows without any apparent interest in their visitors. Elanor watched them for a moment then looked back to Jack.  
"I'm not going to ask you what went on here now,"  
She saw him open his mouth as if to deny that anything had and she caught hold of his wrist and squeezed, hard. He winced and shot her a baleful look but it turned to a wary half smile when she went on,  
" I'd rather do that when we don't need to mind our manners. I think getting the truth, even as you know it, out of you is going to take some frank words and quite possibly raised voices."  
His look became most definitely challenging but she ignored it, just gripping his arm tighter to prevent him getting up and moving away,  
"So did they have any answer to the issue of Barbossa?"

Jack turned and looked towards them, his face shuttered in the poor light,  
"Oh they had an answer right enough."  
"What was it?"  
"Nothing more or less than I feared," he said quietly, "knew they'd know but I hoped it would be so cryptic as to be useless, that or it would be something they could do."  
"But it's not."  
"No."  
"So can we help Barbossa?"  
"Seems we must. " he sighed, "Thought it might be that. Must. Bloody Tia Dalma again ain't it? Maybe, well possibly. " He shook his head, beads rattling, "Her or another of her kin anyways."

Elanor gave him a long, hard, look but he seemed to be serious enough, though not overly willing to tell her more. She had no intention of allowing him to get away with that and as he made to rise she pulled him down again, ignoring his pained and resentful look.  
"So what is it this thing that we must do?"  
He sighed and looked at her in silence for a moment, then reading the determination in her face he sighed again and inclined his head closer towards her, speaking in a near whisper,  
"Find it."  
She couldn't decide if he was being deliberately difficult or if the enormity of the task inhibited him from naming it. Either way she wasn't allowing him the luxury of a choice,  
"Find what?"

He thought for a moment, then he cleared his throat and squared his shoulders, then he drew a deep breath and looked at her wide eyed and serious,  
"Lucifer's Sword."


	10. Chapter 10

**Voyages of the Dawn Chaser**

**Voyage Three - Lucifer's Sword**

**Chapter 10 Whys and wherefores **

Why was he doing this? Why, exactly, was he doing this? That thought continued to rattle around in his head as the night edged towards morning.

Jack had given up any hope of sleep several hours ago, almost fearing what might emerge from the shadows if he did, so instead he lay cursing his wondering and a mind that seemed to be less biddable since his return from the locker. Particularly during darkness. All sorts of things seemed to haunt his nights these days, t'was true that some that had been lurking for years but there were many that were more recent, but more worrying was the inescapable fact that no amount of rum drove them away any longer. His last refuge was lost to him courtesy of the water of life, or so he assumed.

Not that he had any rum if he had wanted it. But then rum hadn't helped the last time he had been here either….. He shuddered and decided he really did not want to remember that.

So why was he here? Why had he trekked to this god forsaken place seeking answers to questions that he didn't really want the answers to? That thought, that question, had eaten at him for most nights since he had started out on this new quest, and he had found no resolution to it. At least none that he could bring himself to admit to.

But the horns of that dilemma had become both longer and sharper as he sat through the dark watches in this relic of past powers, remembering things from before, unwilling to sleep and unable to halt the marching of his mind. Why was he here when he didn't have to be? He had tried every permutation of the possibilities he could think of and yet he still wasn't sure that he knew the answer.

'But,' he wagged a mental finger at himself, 'maybe that was the wrong thing to ask any way, maybe the proper, the more pressing, question was whom was he doing it for? Which shadow from his past had driven him here? For there must be a reason he was lying on the rapidly cooling sand, surrounded by crumbling stone and shadows, when he could be almost anywhere else, and it wasn't his rival for the Pearl.'

As the fire fell into grey ash and the night turned from raven haired to silver locks he had lain sleepless, staring up into the shadows, and wondering.

Weren't for Barbossa, he knew that. Weren't for Teague neither, though there was no denying that the old bastard had spoken nothing more than the truth back there at the Brethren Court.

Jack shifted his position on the hard ground with a grimace. Uncomfortable thought that one, that maybe Teague was something other than a drunken bully with a knack of surviving. But should he be surprised? Not really, for who knew the illusions men could weave around themselves better than Captain Jack Sparrow? Was it not the case that many, most maybe, were ready to call him mad or fool when he knew himself to be neither of them? Weren't surprising at all that they thought that now was it? Not when he took so much care to make sure they thought him nothing else. Perhaps the same was true of Teague, maybe that was where he had learned the trick of it; and there was another uncomfortable thought, the realisation that he might have more in common with his sire than he had ever allowed for!

He pushed the unwelcome idea away as unproductive because he knew that it wasn't for Teague that he had come here.

For her then? His mum, the one who had put this wretched streak of honesty into him and sent him off all upright and hopeful and …… honourable to his doom. Was it for her? Well…. mebbe…. and then again… possibly not. The son she had sent out into the world had died a long time before the Kracken swallowed his husk; he knew that and the knowing was why he had never gone back. Better that than…… well no point in thinking on that either, but it was possible that the ghost of that boy had brought him here.

Or then again… had it?

He rolled over and pillowed his cheek on his hand, staring wide-eyed into the dying embers. On the edge of his vision he could see the gleam of Elanor's hair as she apparently slept, the thick bundle of it pale in the dying light, and he shifted uncomfortably again. Was it for her then? This creature from another time and place, was she the reason that he had come here? No denying that he found her…. interesting, no denying that at all. No denying either that she had seemed to expect that he would come. Was that why? Because now they were bound together by the legacy of the water of life, two of kind forever separated from the rest of humanity? Not that he'd felt much kinship to most of human kind for many a year. There was no denying that staying on the right side of her was all the more important if they would stride the centuries alone but for the other, and he couldn't quite fathom her, though he'd not let her know that if he could help it. But she was odd, very odd, for she apparently accepted his piratical behaviour with barely a qualm and yet she behaved as if she expected him to be a good man even so! Was perplexing. Most people were more than ready to think the worst of him thank god! But she….., well she was a conundrum and an inconvenient one at that.

Jack squinted at her across the fading glow from the embers, the air was cold, as it could be this close to a desert, and she was wrapped around herself against any possible chill, her face buried in her sleeve. Yet he didn't need to see her to recall every detail of her face, it was not one he was ever likely to forget; though 'twas true there were others about whom he had the same thought in the past, lasses he had thought unforgettable, yet he would struggle to recall so much as the colour of their eyes now.

Even Elizabeth Swann, a female that he had good reason to recall, was fading into shadow now, at least during waking hours. At night he could still picture her well enough, at least he could see her eyes and the curl of her lip as that shackle closed shut around his wrist, but the rest was beginning to blur even there. Her voice was clear though, certainly when carried on the winds of sleep, "I'm not sorry". But by day he could no longer recall the shape of her face or the curve of her smile with certainty. No he had good cause not to forget her, and yet, he realised with a jolt, that was just what he was doing.

Despite that he was sure that nothing could drive the picture of Elanor Cavendish from his mind. Nor ever would. Like a great work of art there was something about her that memory would not let go of. Her beauty, the unreal, inhuman, damned perfection of her, was only a part of the reason, for the story it hinted at intrigued him, speaking as it did of a world so different from his own.

For what world, what kind of people, would risk so much for a face? Would he one day walk that world?

Yet even that was not the whole puzzle of her, for Jack would swear that for all her glowing and unmarked perfection she had seen somewhat more than thirty summers. As an officer with command in the navy she must have done so. The water of life had done little to change her appearance but if you had stood her beside Elizabeth you would have been uncertain of who was the elder.

Until you looked into her eyes that was, for they, and only they, betrayed her. But betray they did, for their blue green depths held a wealth of something that could only be achieved by surviving the turning of a further decade or more of years.

Captain Cavendish had commanded men before too, and not a few, he knew that, would be a fool not to, which he was not, for the indisputable truth of it was written in her every word and action. A sobering thought that one, given her attitude to himself, for it suggested that she, a captain and commander of men, might have seen through his legend and judged him as lacking in villainy. Not a comfortable idea at all, for while he might know that a pirate could be a good man it was quite another matter having her know it.

Such knowledge might well lead him into waters he'd rather not sail. Just as it haddone so more than once before.

Was this one such voyage? Had her casual acceptance that he would not wish the locker or its like upon anyone, even Barbossa, pricked him into sailing these dry and dusty waters? Mebbe, but he rather thought not.

There was a hiss as another fall of ash disturbed the quiet and a bit more of the fire died. Jack watched the fading ember and sighed, the answer to the vexed question was not so hidden if he but allowed himself to face it, that bloody chart! Or rather what he thought he had seen in that bloody chart.

He shivered, and not because of the dying fire; recalling that moment still sent a shiver down his spine, something that he did with tedious regularity. Had she or her ghost seen it too? Was that why she had come with him? Had she looked? Of course she had! He would have done nothing less himself. But had she seen what he had seen?

If she hadn't, then had he betrayed it to her?

***

Elanor heard Jack sigh through the thinning mists of sleep and had no doubt that he was wondering what had brought him here again, and probably regretting it.

The ground beneath her seemed to get harder and the trickle of sand down her collar more insistent as sleep retreated further. But as Jack showed no desire to be up and about she assumed that there was not yet sufficient light for them to make the trip back to the ships, certainly the chill air suggested that the sun was not even close to the horizon. Rising now would be pointless and might involve her in a conversation she would rather not have for the moment. But sleep wouldn't return and so she dipped her head back under her sleeve and let her mind drift.

Not surprisingly it immediately drifted towards Jack.

Why had he brought them here? He had no love of Barbossa, that much had been clear when he had brought the man to the Chaser, so concern for a fellow captain had nothing to do with it. It was true that he'd looked very thoughtful when she'd told him that he couldn't leavethe man to his own version of the locker, whatever that was, but she doubted that it was enough reason to explain his willingness to travel so far and with such danger. If some of what she heard of him was true, and she had no certain reason to doubt it, then Jack had a streak of honesty and generosity thatwas suprising given his life and its mores, but this interlude was stretching it a bit too far. Too far even for the adventurer with a taste for risky living that he seemed to be. It was possible that some part of the reason might be the superstitious fear that leaving Barbossato his fate would in some way make his own return to the locker more likely, but the again Jack didn't seem superstitious in the way of Mr Gibbs so that wasn't a complete answer either.

Elanor shivered and buried her face deeper into her sleeve. Of course some of the reason was almost certainly bound up in this 'what a man could and couldn't do' business, and while she hadn't quite worked out exactly what it was that Jack couldn't do she thought it might encompass a wider range of activities and actions than the man himself was happy about. Abandoning another person to hell in cold blood, even when the person concerned was an enemy, might, she supposed, be covered by that 'couldn't do'. But it still wasn't enough, there had to be another reason, a reason more capable of being reconciled with piracy in Jack's wayward mind. Thinking back she decided that she might know what it was. The chart.

Or rather what he thought he had seen in the chart.

He'd first mentioned it that drunken Christmas eve as they sat off Tortuga, and though she had not been in any state to pick up on it then there had been something in his expression when he said it that had fixed the remark in her mind.

Neither of them had been quite themselves at the time of course, the combination of the then unsuspected effects of the lake water and rather a large amount of alcohol had seen to that, but she had not been so impaired that she hadn't noticed. 'After all', she told herself, 'when a man with his type of past talked of destiny or fate even a half drunk mind takes some note, at least it does if it's not the mind of a total idiot.'

She hadn't been so drunk that she knew how drunk she was at that point, only that she had felt warm and comfortable and relaxed, and more at ease with Jack than she had ever been before. Somewhere in the cavern below the sea she had decided that he would do her no harm if he could avoid it and that had allowed her to relax and appreciate that he could be good company.

He had been too. Lying looking up at the stars, telling stories and sharing memories she had been as happy as she had been for a very long time, and the instinct and skills of years told her that he was more than content too. They had both been so off guard and in accord that, almost without thinking, she had asked the question she had never asked before, but that she had been burning to ask him since she first realised the was something more to him than just a pistol wielding thief.

"How did you get the brand?"

He'd gone suddenly still, both face and body unmoving, and in a man who was a habitually restless as he was that was noticeable. For a moment she thought she had ruined the mood and that he would get up and walk away from her and the question, but for some reason he didn't. Instead he gradually relaxed and smiled softly,  
"Not many get around to askin' that."  
There had been a strange edge to his voice, not anger nor mockery but something altogether more…. uncertain, and it confused her.  
"I suppose most people from this time think they know." She replied, not sure if a reply was expected.  
His smile died,  
"Aye, suppose they do." The whisper of that unnamed feeling was still there in his voice.  
"But I don't, so tell me."  
That brought his smile back, only wider this time and with a hint of derision,  
"Got caught. Nothing else to tell."

She'd rolled over and looked down at him, his face was easy to see in the combined light of the starts and the mast lamps but it was impossible to read. Must have been the drink of course but she had forgotten the careful respect of privacy that has been drummed into her during her service years and ploughed right on,  
"Caught doing what? Where? By whom?"  
Jackhadturned his head slightly and stared up at her and to her drink-fumed mind his eyes suddenly seemed darker than the shadows could explain. He gave a low and gravely laugh,  
"Being a pirate luv."  
"How?"  
He had looked back towards the sky, the smile fading from his lips, but after a moment of apparent indecision he had raised a languid hand and made a dismissive gesture,  
"Long time ago, so it doesn't really matter any more now does it?"  
But for all the bored tone of his voice she felt that there was some kind of test buried in the easy words, though she had no idea what it might be a test of, so she answered as honestly as she could,  
"Matter? No it doesn't matter. You are what you are and you've never claimed to be anything else. But I would like to know. I saw enough at Tortuga to understand that people might be driven to desperate measures here, to doing things that those in less perilous circumstances might see as wicked. Particularly if they were the losers in the situation."

His smile had returned, flashing silver, not gold, in the hard light of the moon,  
"Ah, lookin' to absolve me from me sins are you Captain Cavendish? Now why would that be I wonder?" His tone was purring and provocative but his eyes stayed turned away and he didn't give her time to respond before he continued with an air of weary melancholy.  
"Kind of you, but a lost cause I fear." he circled an emphatic hand, "I'm a pirate, given to selfish impulse and the pursuit of whatever me fancy is." He seemed to change mood suddenly and he winked at her, "take what you can and give nothing back darlin'"  
She had sighed in exasperation,  
"Jack, that describes a fair proportion of the people in my world. The pursuit of selfish impulse and whatever takes your fancy at the time is almost a religion for a large percentage of the people in my bit of it! Accountability is nearly as dirty a word as restraint or duty, so much so that we've probably doomed ourselves to extinction on the back of it. " She had banged his chest with the base of her wine bottle in emphasis, "But none of those people would describe themselves as pirates."  
That seemed to surprise him for it brought his eyes back to her face,  
"Would they not? Even less honest than me then, if what you say is the truth." He wriggled his shoulders and flicked a finger, "But it changes nothing. I'm a pirate. I'm not an honest man, I steal things." The grin widened, "At every opportunity."  
She had smiled back at him recognising the attempt at deflection and bypassing it,  
"And you got the brand stealing what exactly and from whom?"

He was silent for a moment his smile fixed and his eyes wary and calculating, then he turned them away to the heavens again and sighed heavily,  
"Not goin' to give up are you?"  
It was her turn to laugh,  
"No, I'm not. Just consider the information a Christmas gift."  
He snorted his disgust at that, for she had been telling him of Christmas gifts and cards and he had not entirely believed her.  
"Gift indeed!"  
A thought seemed to occur to him and he sat up suddenly smiling brightly at her,  
"Now you mention it…" he reached across her and picked up his discarded coat rifling in its inner pockets for a moment before leaning back with a hint of triumph in his face, "No call to give you that. See, I've already got you one."  
With that he pulled out a string of beads and thrust them at her with both hands like an eager but bashful child offering his favourite teacher a box of chocolates.

For a moment she had been deprived of breath, and though she knew that the gesture ended any chance of her finding out anything about the brand, at least for the moment, yet still she couldn't take exception. The glass beads were pretty and he had certainly not gone ashore with them, and with pearls to offer his ladies why would have bought the beads? Except for her.

He was smiling with an uncertain but unfeigned pleasure as he held them out to her, apparently with no doubt that she would find them pleasing. She had to admit that she did.

Elanor had never felt at a so great a disadvantage at anytime since she brought him aboard and she hesitated before reaching out to take them,  
"I've not had the chance to get you or Mr Gibbs anything. " was all she could find to say.  
Jack wound the beads around her fingers and sat back.  
"Not thought that you would have. No worries," he grinned again and wriggled an eyebrow at her, " no worries, next Christmas I'll make sure you get time to go shopping luv'."  
His smile took on the wicked edge that betrayed his intention to taunt her and he edged closer,  
"though not all gifts need to be shopped for. Eh?" the wiggling eyebrows became a leer.  
She had laughed and grasped the beads, reaching up to fasten them about her neck and allowing him to help her when she struggled with the unfamiliar clasp. As he secured it she smiled at him,  
"Give it up Jack, I'm not playing."  
He'd just shrugged and leaned back again,  
"Ah well plenty of time to change your mind. Seems fate ain't goin' to be parting us for a while."

That was when something had prickled at the back of her neck, and it wasn't the clasp of the necklace, for there had been that harmonic in his voice that betrayed that he had just let slip something that he considered important. The suddenly closed look on his face only underlined the fact that he had betrayed something he had not intended to and she had stared at him uncertainly,  
"What do you mean?"  
It was obvious that she was right in thinking that he had not meant to say anything on the matter for in that moment he looked both irritated and uncomfortable,  
"Nothin'! "  
He'd paused and the look of irritation had disappeared to be replaced for a moment by a rare blank look , and then he had smiled again and gone on more easily,  
"At least unless you are planning on throwing me overboard, or abandoning me to me fate in some navy riddled port."

The alcohol must havecertainly been staking its claim to her brain at this point, or maybe she had just recognised that he didn't intend to say anything more, for she'd taken his words at face value and they had moved on to talk of other things. But somewhere in her mind a marker had been set, and she had soon come to the conclusion that if he had meant anything at all by the words then the answer to what would lie in the chart. She knew he had spent hours poring over it in the weeks after they had found the water of life but she hadn't really expected him to do anything else, not given that he had found what he was looking for ths first time. He was a pirate after all and if there was a chance of other treasures being hidden within the map it was only to be expected that he would go looking for them.

But she hadn't expected him to find anything of course, not then, one wonder was enough and finding any more seemed very unlikely. But she'd looked anyway and no one could have been more shocked than she had been at what she found.

It might well be some part of why he had felt the need to come here. As a wind fanned at the embers of the fire into a redder glow she once again wished that she knew what it meant.

***

Jack rolled over again, shifting uncomfortably. Bloody chart! Damn the thing, he almost wished he hadn't looked! But having found the water of life he could not resist the idea that there might be other prizes, other treasures, waiting to be found within its coils.

Finding himself within them had not been expected.

He was almost sure that it was himself, couldn't see who else it could be. But given the events of recent years perhaps that was not so alarming, at least so he kept reassuring himself. Might have convinced himself of it too if only he had stopped there! If he had then he might have assumed that his part had been played out when Elizabeth sent him into the Kracken's maw or when Beckett went to the bottom.

But he hadn't stopped had he? Of course he hadn't! Not Captain Jack Sparrow! Finding her and her white ship there too put an end to that comfortable idea, leaving only a disturbing one, the suggestion that destiny had got its yellowed teeth into more than young Mister Turner.

Suggesting that her fate was in some way bound up with his no less, he who had steadfastly refused to take control of the lives of others for so many years. He who had learned long ago, and in the most painful manner, that, despite all the tracts to the contrary, men will do what they will in the end. He who had learnt so bitterly that their mistakes are their own and that only they can take the responsibility for them. Made him angry just thinking about it, angry and something else that he wouldn't examine.

Yet maybe it would be a kind if justice. He had been bound to Elizabeth by his reckless saving of her, and he would now, in his turn, be bound to another by her saving of him; the circle was completed perhaps.

He just wished he knew who the other figures in the map had been, particularly the female in the hat.

***

The sun was rising behind a milky sky as they traced their steps back from the ruined palace, if that was what it was, and towards the shore. The air was still finger nipping cold and strangely still, and the sands lay dead looking in the uncertain light. They had separated from their hosts at the edge of the dunes, Jack had exchanged a few words with the priestess, at least Elanor assumed that was what she was, and she had put a hand on his arm and replied tersely but with some emphasis before turning away. Jack had nodded just the once, apparently with some reluctance, before striding away across the sand and back towards the shoreline. He had been morosely and silent ever since not even casting a backward look to see if they were still following.

Elanor had kept her own counsel but had joined him leaving the others strung out behind them, she was close enough to see the frown between his brows and the way he would occasionally lick his lips and chew at his lip. Whatever he planned to do now it wasn't with any great enthusiasm.

The flat sands were easy walking now that there was no heat to draintheir bodies, but it was an unsettling walk all the same, even with the mission accomplished; assuming that it was. The light was as unreal as the events of this last night, every lines and bolder softened in that half twilight that could exist when the sun was not fully above the horizon and the moon still kept a finger hold on the sky. Behind the high, pearl pale, clouds the sky was still undecided as to whether to wear its night or daytime shade and the shadows showed the same uncertainty. The sound of the surf breaking on the rocky coast was somehow ghostly in the still air as it came booming across the towering dunes. The men huddled their necks into their shoulders and kept their hands on their weapon hilts as they trailed in their captain's wake, glad to be leaving and desperate for a sight of the sea, even Murtog who had not yet come to think of himself as a sailor.

Jack shivered as he walked, and not for the chill, resolutely turning his eyes away from the mounds of white sand to his one side and the flat expanse of desert to his other, fixing them instead on first the compass and then his boots. Not that he needed the compass to find his way back to the Pearl but it was something to look at other than the expanse of sand that was gradually whitening under the strengthening sun. He had stirred enough unwelcome memories in this last day to last him for a long time without risking the shadow of the locker falling across him again.

But even without those memories his thoughts held little comfort, and there was nothing to distract him from them; behind him his crew were silent and nervous and to his side Elanor seemed lost in her own thoughts. Jack had no doubt that those thoughts were going to be directed towards getting some answers from him very soon now, and he couldn't see how he was going to avoid giving her what she wanted if he was to keep her assistance in the matter, and the other matters he had in mind. But which answers could he give her? What would she accept? Only than the truth and he was disinclined to go that far however much he might need her good will.

No denying her good will would be useful, for if he had to sail north, as it seemed he must, then there was another chore that might also be usefully done, and he would rather not sail to that venture on the Pearl. This crew were untrustworthy miscreants who had abandoned him once already and it would therefore be foolish to trust them with so valuable a secret, and he had neither the time nor the resources to find another crew fro the moment. Which meant that he would need her and her ship to carry him to that particular treasure.

To his side the dunes were starting to reflect the morning heat and a shimmer had appeared over the desert, and still there was no wind. The memories stirred again and he wondered if it was just by chance that everything seemed to conspire to remind him, or if other forces were at work. He'd not be surprised if they were, not given the message that…. they.. had given him.. Maybe someone was making very sure that he understood what was at stake, and maybe with good reason.

He frowned at the thought of what needed to be done. They would just make the morning tide and be on their way to the next stage of what seemed like to be a long voyage. A voyage that would involve several unwelcome complications, not the least of them being his intention to sail under Captain Cavendish's command one more time. It made him very uneasy, the idea of leaving the Pearl again; but Gibbs would take good care of her, and if he tackled this other business first then Barbossa would remain as he was, and iso n no shape to abscond with her, until her rightful captain was back aboard..

If they were right, and he'd bet a cask of the best rum that they were, then his old enemies fate was much as his own had been and the man was as powerless to change it as he had been. So just as Barbossa had sailed to rescue him from the locker for his own best interests now he in his turn must render the same service, and for similar reasons.

Funny old world.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11 Proposition **

"A dead woman, you want me to go in search of a dead woman?" Elanor said without expression.

She looked at the man opposite her and watched with hidden amusement as a faint expression of unease settled on his face; this was quickly replaced by a rueful smile as he caught her carefully neutral look, a look he had no difficulty in reading. Jack cleared his throat slightly and inclined his head, avoiding those somehow sardonic looking eyes as he replied,  
"Ah, yes, well…. Might not have been as …" fluttering fingers betrayed his unease, "forthcoming about that as it may have appeared... at the time. Not told you the…. strict….. truth of the matter, some might say."  
He sat back and rolled his rum glass between his hands as he shot her a hopeful look from under his lashes,  
"I'm sure a woman of worldly experience such as yerself knows how it is? The full truth is not always being the better thing to be tellin'. Not when other …. things.. are involved." He waved a conciliatory hand in her direction, "A woman wise as you'll not take that amiss, not in the circumstances." The look became even more hopeful as a hint of uncertainty entered his voice, "Will you?"

Elanor sat back with a faint sigh and sipped her brandy for a moment, her every movement watched closely by dark kohl rimmed eyes, eyes that actually looked more than a little anxious. Finally she lowered her glass and tilted her head slightly,  
"Jack, I'm as offended as I am surprised." She smiled at him with friendly malice,  
"Do I look to be surprised?"

***

They had left the blinding white coast and its towering dunes behind them as soon as the tide made it possible to do so. None of them had any desire to stay at anchor a moment longer than they must, and certainly not after Ariadne had warned of a small flotilla of Spanish ships just left Lima and heading their way. Jack was not apparently in any mood for plunder and so they had turned down the coast and headed away from the possibility of being seen without any argument. The wind had seemed to favour them, coming round astern and filling the canvas, sending both black and white ship skimming rapidly away from the ruins and the strange people who used them.

The two captains had said little to each other on the trek back down the dunes and to the shore, only when they had reached the boats did Jack pull her slightly to one side, speaking low even so,  
"I need to get this motley lot back to their business and stamp on whatever chattering they have a mind to do. Too much talk of spirits and magic will not help our cause, and the presence of your good self is unsettling enough. Won't be able to stem the tide completely o'course, as well try command the Atlantic Ocean, but I can make sure that Mr Gibbs is forewarned, he'll keep em in line after that."  
He fell silent for a moment watching as his crewmen splashed out to pull the boats free of the sands, but the tick at the corner of his mouth spoke of more uncertainty than simple concern for the reactions of his men.

Watching him in silence Elanor knew that he had something else on his mind. Crazy Jack, as Gibbs had told her some called him, had been leading men so long and to good enough effect that he could not really have doubted his ability to maintain command. For all his frequent flippancy and bravado she had to assume that when it came down to it he was a more than a half good leader and a better captain than most, for pirate ships were not autocracies and the man Jack sometimes purported to be would have soon foundered on a sword point or in a Tortuga tavern. Certainly that man would have sunk into obscurity long ago, for there would have been no crew that would follow such a man for long, and a pirate without a crew doesn't have stories told about him.

Therefore his unease was more to with her than them.

Sure enough as the men dragged the boats into the surf he turned towards her,  
"There's a matter I need to discuss with you, but not here or now. So what say you to paying a visit to the Pearl this evening? It's high time I introduced you to her, she'll no doubt have noted you on her tail and though I explained the matter 'tis only good manners that you are formally introduced."  
She had not responded immediately and he had cast her an uncertain glance,  
"Naught for you to fear on the Pearl madam, you scare the life out of me crew, they would no more threaten you than they would Calypso." He cast another look towards the men clambering into the boat. "Possibly somewhat less since you are here and she is not." his voice sank even lower as he muttered, "At least we hope she is not."

"I'm not afraid of your crew Jack."  
She had responded with some indignation and he had pulled a face in response, obviously annoyed with himself for his choice of words, and then nodded quickly,  
"Apologies, course not," he cast her a rueful look, "No reason why you should be. Havin' felt the strength in those pretty fingers of yours I doubt that any one of them could overpower you."He was suddenly serious, "and they would have to take both me and Gibbs before any of them would get the chance to try to best you. My word on that, and you should know that's not given lightly." He turned away slightly and dropped his voice to a whisper she didn't think he was meant to hear, "never at all if it can be avoided."  
"I don't doubt it," she had replied quietly, shaken by the sudden seriousness and intensity of both his look and voice, and by the fact that she rather thought that he meant it.  
He turned back and smiled at her,  
"Course by the time these three have finished with the story they will be even less likely to want to anger you."

That set up a train of thought that had occurred to her before, and this time seemed right to ask, knowing Jack it seemed unlikely that there would be a better one. As they watched the second boat pulled from the sand an into the surf she edged closer to him,  
"How exactly did you take care of Elizabeth Swann when she was sailing with you? Turner might have taught her how to use a sword but I doubt that would have been much protection if they really took it into their heads to do her harm. As the daughter of a man who would hang anyone of them there must have been those who would have tried it for that reason alone. It can only have been your command that kept her safe. So how did you manage it?"

Jack grimaced again and gave one of those complicated shrugs of his,  
"With some difficulty! Silly lass was not always careful about how she desported herself."  
Elanor smiled,  
"I doubt that she was, from what you told me she'd not have understood the risks she was running. So how?"  
He stared down and kicked at the sand with a toe,  
"She was safer than she would have been on most ships. But anyways by the time they all knew she was a lass they knew Beckett were after her too, and that he locked her up and that she's broken free. That went a long way to keeping her safe."  
"But not all the way Jack." Elanor said gently, "I've seen what a few 'good' and law abiding' men can do when they are a long way from that law and think they can get away with it. Your crew aren't even that in some cases. Even one who means no ill when it starts can persuade himself that no means yes when he's sunk enough rum and his mates are saying that it does. So what did you tell them? Because while I'm sure that be they as honourable as any of their kind this is not a world where a girl runs around dressed as a boy without there being some undesirable consequences. You said something to keep her free from molestation."  
He shot her a half shamefaced look,  
"Aye, maybe, I'd say none would have meant her harm but you could well be right, though Gibbs and your maybe ancestor would have sided with me to protect her if it needed it. But shipboard rules luv…. they'd not touch the captain's wench without askin', so I let it be known that was what she were, or rather that was what I planned for her. Luckily her conduct tended to support the idea." He scuffed at the sand with his boot again, "got a bit harder when Turner came aboard, but he weren't given to demonstrations of affection and by the time they might have thought anything of it they were used to her and him and there were other worries to distract them."

A shadow of something that looked to be guilt passed across his face but disappeared so quickly she couldn't be sure. He shrugged something away with an irritated look,  
"So will you come to the Pearl? Can't offer you the comforts of a ghost but I can provide a decent meal and some proper French brandy, brought it aboard 'specially with you in mind."  
Elanor looked at him for a moment then nodded, the truth was that she wanted her bed and time to think but it would be churlish to refuse the invitation,  
"I'll come, but only for dinner, it's better that I don't converse with Ariadne while I'm aboard and I'd rather not venture far from her while we are in Spanish dominated waters."  
Jack nodded his agreement,  
"I'm with you on that. We'll move on down the coast awhile, and if she sights any danger we'll review our plans then."

The boats were now rising on the swell and the men of Jacks crew were taking up their oars, so he said nothing more and with a respectful nod in her direction he strode out to take his place in the boat. Elanor watched them pull away before she took her own boat and headed back to the Chaser and Ariadne.'

***

The ships left the bay as the day was heating up and Elanor, weary and slightly disturbed by the events of the night before took to her cabin, and she hoped some sleep, leaving Ariadne to review the record of the those same events. Hopefully to find her an answer to them that was easier to swallow than what she thought she had seen. But sleep wouldn't come and so she rose and headed to the galley for a long breakfast and a conference with Ariadne.

But once again her all seeing confidant proved to be less than all seeing leaving her with almost as many questions as she had had back on the shore.

Not that Elanor surprised to discover that the remote cameras had recorded nothing from the time they had moved to that inner chamber, somehow she had not really expected anything else. Whatever was happening here it seemed that visual records were to be harder to come by then she might once have though. The images from the remotes had been fine when they went ashore, and Jack's unease was more easily spotted watching them in the safety of the ship than it had been when they had actually taken that long walk, making her even more certain that he had expected something of what happened Even when they entered the outer chambers the images continued unbroken, but that changed when they entered the inner court and the events of that ruined throne room remained only unrecorded speculation.

"Drugs." Ariadne offered, "your experiences were probably the result of some compound contained in the smoke from the incense."  
"Yes I know, but I'd love to know just why I had those particular hallucinations."  
"Why are you having this one?" was the reply.  
"If I am."  
"Agreed. If you are. But the way events are being shielded so selectively I must conclude that either your subconscious is working through an agenda of some form or something, that is some other non-random factor, is influencing events. Something that has the power to distort certain types of energy."  
"Is that so impossible Ariadne?"  
"You know that it is not impossible, energy fields remain poorly understood even in our world, and a significant number of things that were once thought to be delusion or superstition have been found to be a result of them. This is not unknown. But as I intimated earlier the selective way that events are happening would suggest that a certain degree of premeditation is involved."  
"Current or past?"  
"Possible both or either. Certainly the shielding in the mountain of the water of life was created by someone for a very specific purpose, and it was only chance that a technology that could understand this came to see it. The same might be the case with the ruins you have just left."

That left only one question of course,  
"Premeditation by whom though and for what purpose? "  
"There is insufficient information to speculate, but in this world it would seem that there is more than one form of sentient life, and certainly some of them are not bounded by the usual rules of living beings."  
"Like sea goddesses."  
"Indeed. It may be that the entity Captain Sparrow refers to as Tia Dalma or Calypso is still in involved, but there may be others. As for why? Well that is no clearer. However, disconcerting as it is, we have seen evidence that some of the events of recent months were in some way predicted long before we arrived here."  
Elanor rubbed her eyes with an impatient hand,  
"The chart, well we both know that all the tests suggested that it was very old and I can't see how or why Jack would have doctored it. What could he have expected to get out of it? Even if he had the means and the knowledgw and we have no evidence of any kind that he does. Anyway we both know that seeing what he thinks he saw seemed to shake him nearly as much as it shook me, and it still appears to be influencing him."  
"There might be another interpretation of the images, "Ariadne replied, "but it is hard to dismiss the uncanny similarity, and there are enough unlikely things that have happened for it not to be sensible to discount the possibility. But you are almost certainly right in that Captain Sparrow was powerfully affected by it, and given his history he has drawn what seems to him to be the most likely conclusion."  
Elanor nodded wearily,  
"That we are bound together in some form of fate, in a sequence of events that we can't side step. Yes. I wonder where that idea is going to lead us, because, while it probably means he will trust me more, it almost certainly means he will expect me to tag along in whatever he feels it necessary to do now."  
"And you will." Ariadne stated.  
"Not got much choice, now have I?"  
"No. But do you think he has something in mind at this moment, other than the resolution of the Captain Barbossa matter?"  
Elanor sighed deeply and headed towards the door and her bed, she had a night's sleep to catch up on,  
"I'm dammed sure of it, and I think he plans to inveigle me into what ever additional lunatic scheme he has in mind over dinner."  
"Then let us hope that he has a good cook." Ariadne offered.

Elanor cast one disgusted look behind her,  
"It had better be Cordon Bleu at the very least, and if he hasn't found any decent brandy then all deals are off!"

***

Pintel had barely given Raggetti a chance to cross the deck before he pulled him into the shadows and set about cross examining him.  
"So what'd ya see then? What was there? Gold? Jewels? The lost treasure of a heathen empire?"  
His eyes had glittered with avarice but there was an even rougher note than usual in his voice that betrayed his annoyance. It would be a long time before he forgot the fact that he had been left behind, not seeing things that others who had served less time with Captain Jack had seen. Pintel was sure that something other than Barbossa had brought them here, for he couldn't see Captain Jack risking this coast and the Spanish that infested these waters for no better reason than his enemy. But something about his friend's woebegone face made him wonder about just what treasures it were that they had come for, and what the price of them might be.

Raggetti had been silent and withdrawn since he had clambered aboard, and as they put to sea he had carefully avoided looking back at where they had just been. When Pintel had questioned him about events his wide-eyed look spoke more of fear than the pleasurable anticipation of great riches. When challenged he just shook his head and said nothing causing Pintel to sigh in exasperation,  
"Well there must have been something worth more than a penny or two for Captain Jack to bring us all this way, mark me it weren't for love of Barbossa."  
He waited but Raggetti showed no sign of answering,  
"Out with it!" he demanded eventually, his chest swelling in anger, "Or are the three of you hoping to keep it for yourselves."  
"Weren't nothin'" Ragetti said eventually, apparently undisturbed by his friend's irritation, "Just this palace or temple."  
Pintel edged his head closer and spoke eagerly,  
"Littered with offerings and spoils were it?"  
Raggetti shook his head,  
"No. Were just sand and stones and such." He looked around him and seeing no one close he moved his head towards Pintel and lowered his voice, "voices there were, on the wind, but there were no wind. Shadows too, funny shaped shadows that one minute seemed like a rock then next like a cat, and then like a man." He shuddered, "strange it were, very strange. I'd not want to go there again."

Pintel rolled his eyes,  
"More macabre goin's on then? What is Jack Sparrow about this time?"  
Raggtti shrugged,  
"Didn't say. Were these other people appeared from nowheres. Funny they were, all bundled up in heavy robes as if it weren't a desert. They knew Captain Sparrow though."  
"Did they so?" There was an odd note in Pintel's voice that made Raggetti look at him uncertainly,  
"Aye. But the captain he told the lady captain that he had been here before, so maybe they recalled him from then."  
An unpleasant leer settled on Pintel's face,  
"What she like this lady captain then? Like poppet is she, all hoity toighty and headstrong. Is she a fair wench eh? That why the captain want to keep her at his heels is it? Playing the same game as he did with poppet eh?"  
Ragetti looked even more afraid.  
"No, she's not like Mrs Turner at all, not like she were first, nor like what she become."  
Pintel's leer didn't fade.  
"Pretty wench is she?"  
His friend shook his head vehemently,  
"Not a wench at all. Something other worldly about her, sort of supernatural if you take me meanin' But a lady like Miss Elizabeth was for all that, an' then again not like her. More like……" his brow furrowed as he chased a likeness that he hadn't been able to pin down all the time ashore, "Commodore Norrington! " he suddenly produced with a smile of relief and triumph, "yes. You remember him? When he were Commodore I means, not when he were a deck hand."

That turned the leer to a scowl,  
"Oh aye I recall him right enough, took us back to Port Royale when the curse was broken, in chains as well as in the brig, the bastard. But he was a man ya daft head, you sayin' the lady captain is a man?"  
"No, she's a lady right enough, " a furtive smile chased away the frown, "No mistakin' that," his hand sketch a curve in the air. The smile faded as his brow furrowed again, "More than fair too. She's a woman right enough, but…. she don't seem like one somehow."  
"What's that supposed ta mean?"  
"Well she don't walk like one for one thing, even in her breeches Miss Elizabeth didn't stride out like this one does, and the lady captain she don't need to do any runnin' to keep up neither." He thought for a moment, "Don't talk like one either."  
"Then how does she talk?" Pintel growled,  
"Well her voice is sort of lower than Miss Elizabeth's, she uses the same long words, and some longer ones too, but ….. when she gives orders," he pointed a bony finger at his friend, " and she ain't slow in doin' that it neither, well it sounds like it's the most natural thing in the world. Even Captain Jack listens to her when she wants to be heard. Don't have to raise her voice neither, nor insult him, she speaks and he listens."  
Pintel snorted,  
"Well she ain't goin' to be givin' me any orders! Captain Jack Sparrow taking note of a lass, even one with her own ship? Sounds like yer left yer wits behind in them there sand dunes!"  
Raggetti had opened his mouth to deny the charge but closed it and dropped his eyes to the deck moving away slightly as Jack Sparrow came down the decks towards them with a sharp eye and a meaningful swagger,  
"You'll see when you meets her, you'll see," he muttered as he hurried away to his station.

Within five minutes of her being on board Pintel had to admit to himself that Raggetti had been right.

***

The food had been good if not lavish, and he had produced both French wine as well as brandy, though he'd passed on the latter in favour of rum, or so he said. Elanor was not so sure what his rum bottles contained any longer for the drink never seemed to make much headway with him. Maybe it was the effect of the fountain, then again maybe it wasn't for she had only seen him the worse for drink that one evening. Sobriety hadn't affected his drunken mannerisms though and it would be hard for one who didn't know him to tell when he was or wasn't under the influence of something. A fact he had no doubt used to his own advantage on many occasions.

They had sat and eaten without interruption though Elanor could feel the curiosity of the crew radiating through the planks and into the cabin. They had all been polite enough, though they had all found reason to come close to her and they had not bothered to hide their stares until Jack had waved them back their business and indicated the way to the cabin with a flourish of a bow. Only one, a man Jack named as Pintel, had been bold enough to accost her directly as she crossed the deck, and his face had been alight with speculation. But she had met his kind before, too often to count, and she had learned to handle them a long time ago, it had taken little more than a hard look and a quick, cool, "you have business with me sailor?" to send him back to his station with his cocky look banished. Jack had frowned in his direction but said nothing when Elanor had given a quick shake of her head. Raggetti had caught hold of the man as he passed and obviously remonstrated with him, Jack caught the exchange and grinned as he turned away and followed her to the cabin.

They had eaten, talked constantly on things neither of them could recall later and filled the glasses for the third time before he had broached the business he had brought her to hear. It had taken her by surprise though she hadn't let him see it.

"Elizabeth Swann, sorry Turner, you want me to take you to find her. So she isn't dead, but why do you want to go after her now? Haven't we got enough on our plates with Barbossa?"  
Jack bridled and shot her an impatient look,  
"I do not want to 'go after her', as you so inelegantly put it at all. If I had the choice I would leave her well alone until everyone had forgotten her very existence, as they will. But I don't have the choice now do I?"  
"You don't?"  
Jack rolled his eyes in exasperation,  
"No I don't, and you'd know it if you would just think about it."  
Elanor raised her eyebrows at his tone and he drew a steadying breath and smiled an apology, leaning forward across the table he refilled her glass meeting her eyes without hesitation as he did so. That put her on her guard, Jack was always at his most dangerous when he seemed to be confiding. But when he spoke it was not apparently to deceive.  
"Was clear when we were in Tortuga at Christmastide that they are still lookin' for me, lookin' very hard, and we both know why that is. Given the current circumstances do you think they are goin' to be giving up on that any time soon?"  
Elanor thought about that dispassionately for a while.  
"No, I don't. But how does that change things?"

Jack looked at her for along moment then sat back, tipped his chair slightly and propped his ankles on the edge of the table, looking at her over the top of his glass,  
"She knows," he said eventually.  
Elanor reviewed the various stories he had told her of the battle, the Flying Dutchman and the heart of Davy Jones,  
"She knows where the heart of Jones is? Why?" she asked.  
"Where the……. heart is.. yes." He took another drink, grimacing at something as he swallowed, "and Teague knows where she is."  
"As I said, why? Why does she know where it is and why does this Teague know where she is, and why does that matter?"  
He was silent for a moment, his blank and wide eyed look betraying that he was debating something with himself, then he sighed as if coming to a not entirely wished for conclusion,  
"She has it in her safe keeping," he snorted his derision at the idea, "and Teague knows where she is because he transported her there… given that I couldn't do it meself he was the only choice that could be risked. The old bugger would not see a King of the Bretherin Court lost to the Navy, even though the court had disbanded, that would be against the code and that is the one thing he will protect."  
There was a hint of bitterness in his voice but his face remained calm and his expression was unchanged.

Elanor stared at him in silence as she turned that idea over in her mind, then tugged at the obvious loose end,  
"Why would Elizabeth Turner have charge of Davy Jones heart?"  
Jack took another long swallow and reached over to refill his glass,  
"Because, dear Captain Cavendish, it isn't the heart of Davy Jones in the chest any longer."

****

Outside the cabin those of the crew not at their meal or in their bunks idled about their duties and stole quick looks at the cabin door, the firmly closed cabin door. Only Pintel had ventured to the door itself, putting his ear against it with a smirk on his face, a look that melted to dismay as Gibbs came down the steps and caught him. He hurried back to his station with Raggetti on his heels,  
"Words, there was just words. They was talking, but quiet like, didn't seem as if they were doin' anything else," he muttered as they went, it didn't need words to tell him that Gibbs was in no mood to tolerate anything he might see as insubordination. "So why all the fine victuals and the secrecy?"  
Raggetti cuffed his shoulder jovially,  
"Told ya so, she's a captain herself, got her own ship, so she must be, and even ol' Jack respects that." The jovial mood faded as he recalled her, "I'd take a wager she'd be a mean enemy too, good friend maybe but not one to be on the wrong side of." He frowned, "not unlike the captain hisself in that ways."

Pintel scowled,  
"Werrll she seemed fierce enough, tis true, and very…… officerly. Maybe she be too fierce for his taste eh? Not like a woman at all now I comes to think of it."  
Raggetti grinned slyly,  
"Told you so. But she's a woman alright, and she couldn't be any more fierce than Calypso and he don't seem to have hung back there." He looked thoughtful; "Never have seen Jack Sparrow hangin' back in the lists of amour ."  
Pintel gave a rueful shrug,  
"Aye that's true. So what's he be up to with this one? He's got the Pearl back now, Barbossa ain't likely to rise from his bed and try and snatch her from him agin. So it ain't because he needs her ship. So all this feedin' up of her, cook were at the fire most of today and very particular the captain were about what was cookin' he says, an' the wine and candles and all, what's in it for him?"

Ragetti dipped his head as Gibbs caught sight of them again and began to cross the deck with a scowl on his face.  
"No sayin' he plays it close does the captain these days. But it clear as the nose on yer face that he wants somethin' of her, and that he ain't sure he's goin' to get it."

***

The candles were guttering and Jack rose to light a couple of fine gilded lamps and a lantern or two. As he meandered across the cabin took a moment to look around him in pleasure, The room looked civilised, almost splendid, and suddenly that mattered though it never had before. The Pearl was sailing well too, and he had the feeling that she had approved her introduction to this woman of another world; maybe she knew how much Elanor loved her own ship. He gave himself a mental shake, now was not the time for such thoughts, not when there was business to be done and an accord to be struck.

He looked across at her,  
"So you see me predicament Elanor. I can't leave the heart of William Turner to the protection of his dearly beloved however much I might wish to. Even if she has the will to keep it safe, and continues to have it, it cannot be certain she will have either the opportunity or the means."  
He inclined his head briefly it in her direction, his expression serious,  
"and be in no doubt that if someone should gain possession of that heart from her, or even finds her in possession of it, then they gain the means to command William Turner, and we are back to the situation that yours truly, and all thinking men" he raised a hand and smiles ingratiatingly though his eyes stayed steady and thoughtful, "or woman, who sails would want avoided. Power corrupts luv, and no one is exempt from that, not in the end. Would bring all sorts of horrors down on us if anyone was to gain control of the Dutchman."

Elanor lounged back in her chair and watched him move through the shadows,  
"And this is your only concern Jack? The freedom of the seas, and therefore yourself?"  
Jack's smile took on a golden edge,  
"Ourselves my dear Captain, you yourself would not fare well if young William were brought to someone else's heel. Would be no hiding from him, at least not for long."  
She pursed her lips and nodded,  
"True. But is that your only reason?"  
"What other would I need? " he asked with a bland smile.  
She shrugged and let it go.  
"Or would you come to that." he said softly as he shook out a taper.

From the shadows by the casement he watched and wondered if he had said enough to convince her, he hoped so because keeping his mind on the task was getting harder by the minute. In this dimmer light her perfection was even more noticeable, more painting like than flesh like and her beauty had a transcendent quality that made it more a thing to be feared than desired. Yet he did not fear it. She had let her hair free of its usual braids and it fell like a yellow waterfall across her shoulders and down to her waist, the candlelight burnished the golden threads and flashed in those silvery streaks that frosted the deeper tint. The almond shape of her eyes seemed highlighted by the shadow and their blue tint seemed to have faded leaving the green in command, so much so that they shone like emeralds in the candlelight. Her long fingers were playing with the stem of her glass and her brow was thoughtful, and a sudden recollection of other conversations told him that she would have more questions. Just as he himself would have done had he been sitting in her place.

At that moment she looked up, and those very beautiful but commodore like eyes narrowed slightly,  
"Why now Jack? We have this search on for whatever the artifact they called Lucifer's sword is, at least we do if you are to free Barbossa, which it seems that you agree you need to do. So why suggest this now? I understand why you don't want to take the Pearl to meet this young lady but why do you want me to come and do this now."  
He went a stood behind her, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder, resisting the impulse to stroke the wide line of them,  
"Because while Barbossa is still trapped wherever he is he can't be inveigling the crew to go off and leave me behind again now can he?"  
She leant her head back and laughed,  
"No of course not, silly of me not to have thought of it. But then I've never been mutinied against."  
Jack swallowed and tried to concentrate on the gentle taunt rather than the way the silk tightened against her breast as she moved or the shimmer of her fall of hair as it shifted on her shoulders. With a sudden intake of breath he removed his hands from skin that suddenly seemed to burn him and moved away, sitting down a shade more quickly than he had intended too. He really had been at sea too long if just the movement of her ribcage could do this!

But in that moment she had reminded him of Anamaria and an idea sprang into his mind, a way to make it safer for them all, if the ladies involved would but play. But with women like them it never paid to take too much for granted, certainly not when you were to some degree in their debt. And he was in debt, to both of them, but it was still the best way if they would agree.

He looked back across the table to Elanor who was smiling at him in complete understanding, inviting him to play the word game with her, a game that he had to admit she played well and that he found great pleasure in. If that was the only pleasure he could imagine at this moment! But her eyes were softer in the candlelight, her face like an angel true enough but invested by the shadow with a hint of wickedness that suggested she might not be adverse to playing the fallen role, at least sometimes Now was not the time to be thinking of that!

He swallowed hard and drew on his long experience of hiding weakness, taking a deep breath he smiled as carelessly as he could manage.  
"Tell me luv, do you have an religious or moral exception to wearin' skirts?"


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12 Extreme measures **

They had sailed south with the winds constantly astern and the waters a benign helper urging them onwards, and no great feat of sailing was required of either ship before they turned and headed north again. Not for the first time Elanor thought that maybe Jack wasn't so crazy in assuming that the hand of fate was at work, for she had never seen the ocean currents and winds so constantly accommodating. The strange feeling that she was being watched made her wonder all the more.

Sometimes as she stood at the rail and watched the waves break around the Chaser's hull that age old feeing would steal across her, the one that warned something was behind you without waiting for the proof, and she would turn with her hand going to her belt, only to find that no one was there. At others she thought she caught the faint sound of voices on the wind. She might have thought she was going mad had not Ariadne, that most objective of observers, also considered it possible that they were not alone.  
"There is a possibility that you are," the calm voice had replied when she had commented on this feeling of being observed. "If you draw the definition of 'watched' widely that is. There are shifts in the energy field on occasions that are outside of normal parameters, they come and go very swiftly and there is nothing that can be detected that would account for the changes. But then we are not sure of the nature of this world and so firm conclusions cannot be drawn."  
"But a supernatural presence coming and going might account for it?'  
"Having never encountered such a presence previously I cannot say. However if there are beings here whose corporeal existence is subject to change, and that can manipulate such fields, then that might be an explanation."

Elanor thought about that for a moment,  
"How many? Just Jack's sea goddess do you think?"  
"If that were to be the answer then I would conclude more than one, most likely two."  
"Two! So who is the second, assuming that there is anything at all?"  
"I have no evidence, but scanners indicate that the shifts in the fields have two separate patterns implying that there would be two entities, sometimes alone and sometimes together."  
"Curiouser and curiouser. I wonder what interest I am to them."  
"Your association with Captain Sparrow would seem to be the most likely explanation."  
"But he's on the Pearl so why would they be watching me?"  
"Because it is the events in which he is a player as much as the man himself that interests them?" Ariadne hazarded.  
Elanor pulled a face at the thought,  
"Yes, I suppose that would account for it." She felt a spurt of irritation, "Damn that bloody chart, bad enough being caught here without being a pawn in the game of someone or thing I can't even be sure is there."  
She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair,  
"I can't even be sure which event it is that interests them, Barbossa and this sword, whatever that is, or this Swann, sorry, Turner, girl that Jack's on about now."  
Ariadne remained silent.

"How long have they been about, do you know?" Elanor asked.  
"I am not even sure that they are there, "Ariadne protested, "Only that the anomalies might be explained in such a way. If that is the case then their visits predate Captain Sparrow taking back his ship, but their presence, if that is what it can be called, is becoming more frequent."  
"So it might be either," she ran her hand over her hair again, "What a mess! I feel quite sorry for Jack, even if he is not telling me the whole truth."  
"Which he is not?"  
Elanor laughed,  
"I would be very surprised if he is. He's stayed alive this long by always having something up his sleeve, some little snippet that he knows and others don't, so why should he break the habit now?"  
Ariadne seemed to give that some thought,  
"Doesn't he trust you?" she asked eventually.  
Elanor shrugged again,  
"As much as he can trust anyone I think, certainly someone from a world as different to his own as mine is."  
"And do you trust him? "  
"About the same amount and for the same reason, so I can't complain about it, now can I? We each know so little about what makes the other tick that total trust would be foolish, and we both know it. But that's not my worry, it's that I get the feeling there are all sorts of wheels within wheels attached to this Mr and Mrs Turner business. Jack is a pretty cool customer in most ways, almost chilly on occasions, but there is definitely some heat under the cold waters where they are concerned."

Ariadne considered before replying, reviewing her evidence carefully as she always did,  
"Yes Captain Sparrow seems to me to be a far from impulsive character, for all his posturing. Close scrutiny of him when he was aboard suggested that, on the contrary, he is a very controlled man."  
Elanor nodded,  
"Both controlled and controlling I'd guess, professionally at least, he seems more laid back at the personal level. Though I don't know enough of him to be sure. I suspect that much of the posturing itself is a smoke screen to hide the rational and self-contained nature of the real man. In other circumstances he might have made a fine senior officer, well except for his reckless streak and his apparently overwhelming belief in his own abilities that is."  
"Indeed, my observation suggests that he trusts nothing and no one other than himself."  
"Agreed, though I think that at one level he trusts us, particularly you, which is amusing given that he has no knowledge of what you are,  
"Other than a ghost."  
"Yes, but a very far seeing ghost, and he likes that even though he can't predict you, which he most certainly doesn't like, particularly given that you stopped him taking the helm when he wanted to. But you are right Jack has no self doubts that I can discover, though that may be smoke and mirrors too."  
Ariadne, again, said nothing.

Elanor frowned remembering recent events,  
"For the moment I rather hope that it is. This new scheme is mad enough, though I can see the reasons for it, but I'd rather my partner in crime shared some of my doubts. Without them god only knows what he will do."  
"Yet you seem inclined to indulge his recklessness." Ariadne commented.  
"Not inclined Ariadne, required." Elanor protested, "Jack is right when he says that anyone getting control of this heart would be bad news for everyone, including us. It seems that if a ship sails then this Flying Dutchman knows where it is, and while I'd back you against a ghost ship in most circumstances we know too little about this world to be sure that things would follow as we expect."  
"That is true, so you are correct and we must take steps to prevent this heart being found."  
"Which means Mrs Turner must be better hidden."  
"Will that be enough?"  
"No of course it won't, it will help, but it's not enough."  
Elanor crossed her arms over her chest and subjected all she had heard about Elizabeth Swann to a rapid scrutiny,  
"She seems a selfish and reckless sort from what I have heard, even more so than Jack, and nothing like as disciplined or worldly wise as he is." she mused, "of course the tellers are not unbiased and it might all be nothing more than youth and the blindness of passion. But it might be something more fundamental, more dangerous, and having never met her I can't judge. What I do know for certain is that we can't rely on her not doing something stupid for our safety."  
"You have additional measures in mind?"  
"Yes, I have no other choice. The only safe place for that heart is at the bottom of the sea, and I need to make sure that is where it ends up. Preferably in the deepest abyss you can locate."

Ariadne considered that for a moment before replying,  
"Agreed. Do you plan to tell Captain Sparrow of your intentions?"  
Elanor gave a rueful half smile and shook her head,  
"No. I wish I could but I don't trust him on the subject of William and Elizabeth Turner. I don't think he'd play me false deliberately, and under other circumstances I'd count on his rational mind and instinct for survival to bring him out ahead, but in this particular case I'm not at all sure he is being honest with himself, and if that is true then he can't be honest with me, now can he? "  
"I see. Then you are correct that you have no choice but to fall in line with his wishes for the moment. But the matter is not without risk and if you continue on this course you are likely to know more of him than you might find comfortable."  
Elanor looked towards Ariadne with some surprise, suddenly not quite sure how to take the comment, then decided that it would be uncomfortable to start taking Ariadne's pronouncements at more than face value."  
"I know it, but at least it's Jack's plan and while I don't know the parties involved he will not give much thought to the idea that I might have my own agenda in the matter."  
Ariadne considered that,  
"True," she said eventually. "Not least because he will have other difficulties and distractions to keep him off guard."  
Elanor looked towards Ariadne surprise again, wondering how and when she had developed this streak of ruthless cynicism, then she grinned widely as she thought of what was being proposed,  
"Won't he just!"

***

"And she has agreed!" Gibbs voice contained a somewhat less than flattering astonishment.

"Why shouldn't she!"  
Jack looked around warily to make sure that the rising note of his mate's voice had not attracted the interests of the rest of the crew.  
"No reason at all why she shouldn't."  
Gibbs looked at him sideways, then gave a half smile  
"And you think you can do it? Live in such……closeness I mean. With no….." he made a gesture of uncertainly with his hand, "Ill effects like."  
Jack stiffened in indignation  
"Why not!"  
Then he seemed to have second thoughts and he turned to the rail, looking out to sea with pursed lips and narrowed eyes,  
"Not sayin' it'll be easy mind, nor what I'd have chosen, but there is no other way. Elizabeth must be moved to where no one knows of her presence if we are all to be safe. But it must be done in a way that draws no special attention to her, and I can't do that on me own, as the lady pointed out. Quite certain she was, of the effects of a lass turning up somewhere with just a pirate as her escort. Was in the right of it too though I hate to own it, and I'd not wish the consequences of that on her given what she has already lost. Nor on the rest of us. Elizabeth Swann must stay dead and Mrs Turner must be established and wrapped in the mantle of impeccable virtue without anyone knowin' where she is. Ten years is a long time for waiting mate, and if she is to stay true to young William then she will need some help in doin' it."  
He gave a small and cynical smile,  
"We're makin' sure temptation isn't put in her way you might say."

Gibbs thought about that for the moment,  
"But is she not safe enough where she is? Do ye think that Teague would break the accord and betray her?"  
Jack scowled,  
"Were a bargain not an accord we struck. But break it? No, I'd not say that. At least he'd not do it willingly. But while he knows where she is there is a risk that he might betray it ….inadvertently as you might say. There's his crew to think about too, he couldn't have sailed her there alone. " He chewed at his lip, "This here maid of hers is another complication. I'm sure she wouldn't want to betray her charge, certainly not if she knows aught of Teague, but those who are seeking the heart will use any means at their disposal, and if she knows then they will find a wayto get it from her eventually."  
Gibbs gave that some consideration his frown deepening, finally he sighed and nodded ruefully,  
"Aye well….knowin' the Company can't argue with that."

His frowned deepened still further and caught at Jack's arm,  
"But let me come with you, I'd not betray her, you know that."  
Jack turned back to his long time friend and ally with a small smile,  
"Aye, I know that. But I need you on the Pearl." His face became grim and the hand on the rail was clenched in a fist, "can't trust this lot with the knowledge, and that means I can't sail to…..where I have in mind on her. So it must be the lady and her ship that takes me there."  
His smile eased a little taking on some of it's usual devil may care edge,  
"The lady is needed o'course for other reasons as explained, so we kill two birds with one stone."  
He finished on a pleased note but Gibbs was familiar with every nuance of his expression and knew there was something in Jack's mind that he was not being told,  
"There be other reasons too though, you've something else in your mind, I knows it."  
Displeasure flickered across Jack's face then disappeared as he gave a another quick scan of the decks and a small nod,  
"Maybe I have but it is of no consequence. I need you to keep the Pearl safe while I sail away with the lady. Will you do it?"  
"You knows that I will Jack, though Barbossa ain't likely to try and take her from you this time."  
"Aye, and that's another reason for doin' it now. Once we free him, assuming that we can, then is no doubt he'd try to have the Pearl away again. I'd rather see this business finished before we do the necessary where this sword is concerned."

Gibbs watched his captain's face and knew that his mind was already made up, but even so he felt he had to make sure,  
"Are you sure its necessary Jack? We don't know that they know that she's alive, no reason why they should after all. Even if they want Will's heart, as it seems they do, they don't know where to look for it."  
Jack looked back towards the sea,  
"True enough, and for the moment that means they are concentrating on trying to find me, and, unfortunate though that is, it does give us a little more time. But not much, enough people know she survived Sao Feng for them to find out eventually." He turned back and pointed a finger at his mate, "and when they do they will start wondering what happened to her, no doubtin' that. Even if the don't make any connection with the heart they may still seek her out to rescue her. If they do…." Jack shrugged, "then it's just a matter of time before they find out…. other things, and those we would rather they didn't…discover."  
Gibbs shrugged,  
"I'm with you on that Capt'n.. But is there no other way? I mean…. Anamaria! Can you be sure she will keep quiet? She had no great love of Miss Elizabeth as I recall it"  
Jack nodded in understanding of what wasn't being said,  
"I know what you mean, which is why I'm not takin' her with us. No sayin' that the temptation might not be too much for her given other…. matters"

He stopped and frowned, chewing at the corner of his lip again,  
"Will need a maid o'course for the look of it," he stared at Gibbs, "and the look of it is all mind you, which is why it has to be this way. But we can find one o' those when other things are dealt with. As for the rest ….who else is there? As the lady pointed out herself, she has no knowledge of frills and furbelows and other …." He waved a hand in mute description, "female….things. Doubt that she'd know a corset from a petticoat."  
Gibbs smiled indulgently,  
"Aye that's true, but you yerself are not without experience in such matters."  
Jack grinned at some memory,  
"But, as the lady also pointed out, that knowledge might not be appropriate."  
He stared passed Gibbs to the sea and remembered that part of their discussions with some pleasure, grinning to himself at the recollection of the candle light on her hair and the way she had tried not to smile, while all the time her eyes had laughed out loud.

Was a scene as good as a play.

***

"So we head back to Tortuga then?" Elanor had watched the shifting of the candlelight on her brandy, "and I throw myself on the mercies of this Anamaria of yours."  
"Aye, though I'd not let her hear you describe her that way, she'd not take it kindly, and she can be fierce can Anamaria." He watched her thoughtfully for a moment, "Not entirely unlike your good self now I think of it."  
She had let that provocative remark pass without comment, concentrating on the practicalities in a manner that told him she had all but agreed to the plan, which was more than he had expected at that point.  
"Well the gold I can provide, as you know, but are you are sure she has the necessary knowledge? A girl from a fishing family on a pirate island? Why would she?"

Jack had laid back in his chair and smiled at her,  
"Anamaria's grandmother was a bondwoman and a ladies maid before she took to her heels with her man. She taught her all she needs to know," he had pointed his glass at her, "we've put that knowledge to the test more than once to our advantage when she sailed with me, and she never failed. Besides she's our best hope in the circumstances, her not bein' given to gossip."  
He met her sceptical look and grinned unrepentantly,  
"Anyways I'd not know what to tell you, you bein' a respectable woman you understand," he said softly.  
She smiled back, that all knowing angel smile she sometimes had,  
"Oh I understand very well Jack, though I suspect there are a few respectable women in your background too." Her smile widened, "at least when they first met you. After wards….." she shrugged elegantly as she let the words tail away.

To his great surprise that flicked him on a raw patch and he had stiffened, speaking formally,  
"Removing a woman's respectability is not something I have ever been accused of. Captain. Scan me charge sheet from end to end and you'll find no claim of that. The only respectable woman who ever lost by our acquaintance was Elizabeth and that was no doin' of mine, t'were Beckett who made her a jailbird and then a pirate. That an' her menfolk who were too stiff backed and so say honourable to deal with the little shit as he needed."  
She had regarded him thoughtfully for a moment before swinging her legs up and resting her ankles on the table, mirroring his own earlier posture,  
"And how would you have dealt with him Jack?" she asked curiously.  
"If she had been my daughter or affianced? "  
He had considered that for a moment then shrugged.  
"Then a sword if I could get close enough, or a pistol if I could not. If I couldn't get close enough for a pistol then… well… ," he smiled a slow and dangerous smile, " the Caribbean is full of strange and useful plants and none of them tasted in the right food or drink."

Elanor nodded as if she had not really expected anything else.  
"After that?" she replied, "Because killing him wouldn't be the whole answer, now would it?"  
He stared at the wall in thought for a moment while he sipped from his glass,  
"A letter I think, well concealed in his effects, though not too well concealed of course, showin' that he was in league with the King's enemies and that we might know it and so must be eliminated." He took another sip, warming to the game of possibilities, "or maybe something showing that we had done him some imagined wrong in the past and that he was planning revenge. "  
His eyes lit with sudden pleasure, "or papers that showed the Company was in league with the Spanish and planning to take the Caribbean and the Americas entirely for themselves."  
He had looked across at her in expectation and she raised her glass in salute,  
"Yes either of those should do it, though the latter would probably do best if you don't mind a lot of other people getting hurt in the process."  
"Knowin' what I know of the Company, I don't, and nor would you."  
Elanor had set her glass down with snap and put her hands behind her head leaning back to look at him from the shadows,  
"Is that what this is really all about Jack? Guilt? The fact that you did none of those things and that the fair Miss Swann was left to Beckett's less than tender mercy?"

He had felt a sudden and inexplicable irritation,  
"Why is it that a woman must see such things where none exist! I'm surprised at you Captain Cavendish, would have thought an officer such as you were above such wench like weakness."  
She had just looked at him in silence, unabashed, with her brows raised and her eyes steadily meeting his, a look that got under his guard in a way a thousand petulant words would never have done. He turned his eyes away first and sighed,  
"Alright! Given what I'm askin' you to do it's a proper question, I'll grant you that. But you can put that idea from your head for that's not it at all."  
Still her expression challenged him and he raised a hand in protest,  
" Not sayin' that I wouldn't have been takin' if she had been truly offerrin', at least not once her respectability were already compromised. "  
He adopted a mildly baffled look,  
"But astonishing as it were, and despite her breeding, Miss Swann was only ever enamoured of young William; and I was content enough that it should be that way. I'll grant you she was a fair enough lass and one that reminded me of my past, but that life long is behind me luv. I know that."  
He waved a dismissive hand at her continuing sceptical look,  
"Aye it was flattering that she had heard and read so much of me, and no man still breathin' will turn away a pretty girl's admiration if he can avoid it, but it finished there. She had no real thought of me nor I of her."

He refilled his glass again.  
"If I have any debt at all, and I'm not saying that I have, it's to Will Turner and to his father. The lad could have left me to the noose but he did not, and if he betrayed me at the end then it were only for doin' right by himself, and you can't ask more than that. But by my reckonin' I've paid even that with interest. It's not for her, nor even them, that I'm doin' this, so you can be easy on that score."  
She had watched him for a moment then inclined her head,  
"If you say so."  
It seemed he had the agreement that he had sought.

But he couldn't lose the idea that she wasn't entirely convinced. And he didn't want to speculate why that idea had, and still, bothered him.

"So it's back to Tortuga for us then?" Gibbs asked when his captain showed signs of being lost in his own, apparently pleasurable, thoughts.  
"Mmmhuh" Jack grunted pulling his mind back to the less attractive present and looking away to where the Dawn Chaser was sailing in line behind them.

As he watched the sun glinting off the white ship's mast he hoped she would hold to the bargain, for not only would it ease his way towards his goal but it would make that way much more interesting too.

***

With Ariadne's ever watchful help they made the journey without crossing the path of another ship. The empty seas had continued to be kind, the wind remained astern, even when it shouldn't have been, and they made good time.

It was not an unbroken sail however, they put ashore for water and fruit, eating by the light of driftwood fires beneath starry skies. Elanor would sometimes cross to join them, developing a nodding acquaintance with many of the Black Pearl's crew, but mostly she stayed on her own ship. Jack made the crossing and joined her on several occasions to discuss their plan and continue her education about all things of his time and place. They had resumed her swordplay lessons too, and by the time they reached Caribbean waters again she was passably used to the feel of a blade in her hand and hopefully competent enough to hold her own. Jack never gave her quarter, and she was grateful for that however bruised she might feel after a bout.

There has been a ship not far off the Pearls size anchored in the port and As they made their way round the island and towards Polly's bay in the last shadows of night Elanor, at least, spared a thought for who might be her captain and what difference it might make to their plans. All she could do was hope that it stayed out of their way, for she had no desire to be drawn into a sea battle. Jack seemed to be unconcerned about the possibility when she had tackled him about it, during the last bout of sword play by the mast lights,  
"No more pirates in the Caribbean luv, other than me humble self, Beckett's gallows and Jones saw to that. Too early yet for anyone to come looking to take a stake in these waters, they will know the place will be teeming with navy at the moment and will wait for the fuss and froth to die away."  
"And the others who were at Shipwreck?"  
"Headed home, and it will be some time before they venture out again, if they do. Jones was enough to put the fear of eternity into many a heart." He gave a small satisfied smile, "Not many would want to risk crossing the Pearl's guns either."

She had stared at him for a moment, but he had been turned away wiping down his sword blade. Elanor had known that she had to ask the one she had been putting off asking, not sure if she really wanted to know the answer, one of the many she wasn't sure he would answer truthfully,  
"How many of them know Jack? About Jones?"  
He stiffened slightly then shrugged, but there had been no glinting smile or carefully dismissive words this time.  
"Not many, but too many if you take my meaning."  
"How many?"  
"Those who were on the Pearl knew that William did not return with us and that Elizabeth went off by herself. Were largely a Singapore crew and most spoke little English and took no notice of anything much other than the battle, sailors' follow their captain's orders so the fate of a King of the Court is of little interest to them anyways. I saw to it that they thought that Will had died on the Dutchman and she were off mourning her new husband."  
He sighed and slid his sword back into its scabbard.  
" But there were those that knew different, it couldn't be hidden from the English speaking crew as easily as that for Mr Gibbs has a sentimental streak and he didn't watch his tongue as closely as now it could be wished that he had done. Didn't seem to matter then, I hadn't the time to think it through and understand the consequences of that."  
His mouth twisted in a faint smile,  
"Those at shipwreck? Well they got the same tale, Will dead and Elizabeth grieving, some might have suspected but they don't know as such. Were Teague who let it be known so none were goin' to argue the point with him."  
He frowned,  
"Sao Feng's mate probably realised something was up when she didn't come back, but as long as he got the ship he would have been satisfied. He certainly left quickly enough."

Elanor thought about that for the moment,  
"Where are those men now? The Pearl's crew are largely European"  
Jack nodded,  
"Gone home, we picked up new crew at Shipwreck and then again at Tortuga. None of them know much at all, unless Barbossa became foolish before he became haunted. Bits and pieces of stories from those that were there but that's all. For the moment those that might know are too far away for them to know that what they might know has any value. Even when they do…… well they saw what Beckett did when he got control of Jones, they will not want the same thing to be happening again. Though that's not to say they won't give some thought to the possibility of controlling Will themselves." He smiled broadly for a moment, "Would be no kind of pirate if they didn't."  
"So how long have we got?"  
Jack stared at the sea with a thoughtful face,  
"Well it's getting on for half a year since the battle, so say maybe another year, maybe two." He'd caught her surprised look and smiled at her. "No messages around the world here luv, things take more time. But…" he raised his finger at her, "we don't have forever even so, and the nature of the goal may hasten matters a bit so the sooner it is done the better. We set the wheels in motion as soon as we set foot in Tortuga and with luck and a following wind the relevant matters should be settled by summer."

***

They arrived off Tortuga in the very early morning when the first pink blush was new to the cloud. The island looked deserted, not even an early rising goat browsing amongst the bushes on the cliff edge. In the clear light Jack could see Polly's homestead nestling peacefully in its little patchwork of fields, and as he watched the first puffs of the morning fire appeared from the chimney, Closing the glass with a snap he turned to Gibbs with a broad smile,  
"Breakfast!"

Jack, Elanor and Gibbs met across Polly's table an hour later, consuming egg, fruit and tea before turning their minds to the business of the day.  
"So let me get this clear, this Anamaria lives on the far side of the town," Elanor sat back and stared thoughtfully at the wall, "Polly and Ben will go to town as usual and make contact with her and if she agrees to help us then they will bring her back here with them. While she is there Polly will purchase the necessary materials and things."  
Jack waved his cup at her,  
"She'll agree given what we are offerin' her, she'll not pass on that even if her curiosity didn't bring her."  
Elanor nodded, she could understand that.  
"So she will provide me with what tuition she can, with Polly's help, while you and Mr Gibbs make contact with Sampson, find out if there have been any more people looking for you and collect the necessary supplies. Then we both sail away, us to pick up a maid somewhere and Mr Gibbs to keep the Pearl on the move while we do the necessary business. Then we rendezvous here in an agreed period of time before we sail off again to find this sword thing. Yes?"  
"Yes." Jack nodded.

Gibbs huffed,  
"Sounds easy enough when you say it like that ma'am, but there's all manner of things that could go wrong."  
"Believe me Mr Gibbs I'm having to work very hard indeed at not thinking about what could go wrong." Elanor replied.  
Jack glared from one to the other,  
"No reason why it should. As long as we can stay away from the navy then it should all be easy enough."  
Elanor smiled faintly,  
"Navies, Jack, at least in the pleural. That's a lot of people to avoid if you are sailing around aimlessly."  
"I have every confidence in Mr Gibbs here avodaidary abilities,"  
Gibbs looked at him with a mix of gratification and nervousness,  
"Well……. Sea's a big place. If we keep our eyes open we should manage to avoid bein' seen."  
"Agreed. " Jack looked towards Elanor with a mildly affronted look, "See."  
He turned back to Gibbs,  
"Put to, but stay away from the trade routes and avoid any temptations. No need for seekin' plunder for the moment, we have gold enough for our needs and more. Time for thinking of that when this business is resolved. Scout around a bit then bring the Pearl back here and finish the repairs, but don't linger too long for the Navy might be about."

Elanor looked at Polly and saw her own thoughts mirrored in the older woman's eyes,  
'when it is over – assuming we succeed, what do we do then?"

***

They spent the day in looking over the goods they had left behind in their hurried departure at Christmas, making lists and planning the repairs to the Pearl. Polly and her kin had left the three if them to it, getting about their own business knowing that they would take the cart to the town early in the morning. As the sun sank Elanor took her boat and returned to her ship leaving Jack and Gibbs to a meal and their plans to sample Polly's latest brew. Sally took the opportunity to join the adults in their talk and to claim a fair portion of Jack's attentions, though he was often distracted. Ben sat in the corner and watched her over the rim of his mug, but he was no longer concerned for his sisters' virtue, being pretty sure by this time that the pirate had no interest there. Sure too that Captain Elanor would flay him if he put as much as a smile out of place. Ben had learned a hearty respect for the strange and beautiful woman during her previous visits and nothing he had seen in this one had changed that.

As the evening turned to night Polly hauled her daughter away to her bed, Ben had sought his own pallet not long after leaving the two sailors to themselves. Yet Jack showed no desire for drinking or even for much talk and Gibbs was not surprised when he disappeared outside leaving him to douse the fire and trim the lamps.

That chore done Gibbs grabbed the nearly empty bottle and headed out to check the boat mooring. The night was turning darker, the moon a bare sliver in the sky and soon lost like the stars in encroaching cloud. Below him the surf crashed against the rocks but its roar was being challenged by the rising wind and the first hint of rain was on the air. Time to seek his bed, but not before he was sure that Jack was catered for.

He found him on the cliff edge watching the two ships as they sat at anchor, their movement at one with the sea. He had left his hat on the table and his scarf fluttered in the stiff breeze while his shirt sleeves flapped like untrimmed canvas.  
"If you be planning on returnin' to the Pearl then best be off soon."  
He looked in the direction of the other man's gaze,  
"Captain Cavendish will keep to her word I'm sure."  
He pushed the rum in his direction.  
Jack took the bottle and a long swig before he nodded his agreement without turning his eyes from the sea,  
"Aye, she will. Woman of her word she is, a terrible thought, but inescapable."  
Gibbs gave a short grunt of laughter and Jack raised the bottle in his direction without turning,  
"Here's to words and vows and her not bein' so terrible as she sometimes seems."  
In the poor light the flash of gold betrayed that Jack was smiling but his words were serious enough, 'and with good reason' his friend though.

"You sure about this course Jack? Seems a mite extreme some might say. Risking strong winds and heavy seas if ye take my meanin'. What would the Keeper say?"  
That brought a slight shiver of a shrug,  
"Teague? Well he'd curse me for a fool, but there'd be nothing new in that."  
Jack paused and took another long draught of rum,  
" But foolish or no it has to be done, there is no choice in it, and in the need of it being done there is the need that … this… is being done in the doing of it." He took more rum, "No other way for it Mr Gibbs."  
"Aye well cap'n, I hope it goes as planned and that it don't prove to be too… strenuous if you sees what I mean."  
The smile flashed again but still Jack remained staring out towards the two ships,  
"I see Mr Gibbs, you may safely conclude that I see."

There was silence for a moment then Jack turned and handed the rum bottle back,  
"Funny old world, " he said thoughtfully, "bin many things in me life, and would not have been surprised to be many others. But 'tis years since I thought to be a married man. All things come to those who wait. Eh?"  
Then he shook his head, the smile becoming a grin before he strode away.

"Married! Mrs Jack Sparrow, ha!" the words drifted back to Gibbs on the wind as Jack faded into the shadows.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13 Preparations for a wedding **

Polly and Mr Gibbs left early, taking the cart and with Ben riding behind them with a fractious goat, the supposed reason for their trip. The morning sun was barely showing its willingness to return as they rattled down the narrow track to the slightly wider track that passed for the coast road, and the air that gently stirred the palms gave no indication of the furnace hot blanket it would become later in the day. Out in the bay the two ships waited, both of them with furled sail and masts stark against the sky; the black ship sat with her guns pointing towards the open sea while the white ship faced her as if watching her back, and maybe threatening it if she made to sail away and leave her captain stranded. Though Polly didn't think it was fear of that kept Gibbs so quiet and withdrawn and with a frown hovering on his brow.

She didn't know the full story, Jack Sparrow had made sure of that, and for her own part she didn't want to, though Sal was all agog. What the three sailors had talked of so long and earnestly the previous day remained a mystery, for even her man had been close mouthed on it this time. Not that she cared, for what she didn't know no one could ask her for, but he was easy to read and it was clear to her that he was not comfortable about it. Was not safe then, whatever it was they had been planning, but when had anything to do with Jack Sparrow ever been safe? She was sure it was more than just that though, for occasionally Gibbs would shake his head as if he were at a loss, so something not only risky but unusual was afoot. Whatever it was they were about it required the assistance of this fisher girl, Anamaria. Though if the stories were true the girl had sailed as first mate on Jack Sparrow's ship, and she had something of a reputation about the town, and not the kind other ladies of Sparrow's acquaintance had either. So maybe the term 'fisher' was not the full truth of it.

'Strange times' though Polly as she watched the dusty road and remembered the two men who had come calling, a sudden prickling in her blood warning her that they might be connected with the same matter. Someone was seeking Jack Sparrow and anyone who would risk coming to look for him here did not want to find him just to put a rope about his neck. No they wanted something else, something more ….unusual, and they wanted it badly, very badly. She was no fool and she suspected that the appearance of Sparrow and their current errand, whatever it was, was aimed at making sure they didn't get it.

Polly did not wish to speculate what it might be that was being tussled over, for none of the possibilities could be comfortable. All sorts of stories about the events of the last year or so had been circulating in the town and though she had scoffed at them at the time of hearing she was beginning to wonder if that had been as sensible as she had thought. It was clear now that something strange had happened it in those two years that Gibbs had been away, and that something was bad as well as strange. Yet she did not resent being drawn into the matter, if it had brought the Navy to Tortuga then there might be no avoiding it anyway, and if that was the case she would rather Gibbs and Sparrow and that lady captain stood beside her.

The lady had gone back to her ship the previous evening and not returned, Sparrow had returned to his ship too but he had returned very early that morning and they had left him behind at the house, and he seemed content that they should. That he showed no desire to seek the pleasures of the town was noteworthy of itself to Polly's mind, as was his continuing sobriety. She had heard the tales of Sparrow's carousing many times in the past, they were nearly as legendary as his piracy and escapes from the law, but she would not have guessed them from the man she had seen this far in their acquaintance. The man she had fed and housed had been all pirate lord, merry enough when the occasion allowed it, and gracious irrespective of his company, but always with a watchful eye and a sense readiness about him. A good, if uneasy, companion, but with no sign at all of the fool or even of the pleasure seeking sot.

Behind her Ben shifted on the straw, the goat bleating protest as his movement pulled on its tether and she smiled a grim smile. Even Ben had been glad of his return, though they knew their neighbours could be trusted to keep an eye on Sally there was no denying that the presence of a man with a pistol, and one who knew how to use that pistol, was a comfort. Polly had not spoken of her doubts to her son but while she did not fear the actions of the two men who had visited before she was less sanguine about those who might come after them. If she could not be there then her daughter could have no better protector than the wily Sparrow, and accepted that his sister was in no danger from him. Her stolid and dependable son was also aware that new and unsuspected dangers might be swirling around them all and was glad of the support of one for whom danger must be assumed to be a way of life; though he'd probably like to blame the pirate, if he had any idea what it was that he might blame him for.

At the outskirts of the town Gibbs slid to the ground and muttered a farewell and a reminder to be careful before Polly watched him slip into the press of people. He had his tasks to accomplish and she had hers, though why Jack Sparrow should want bolts of cloth, and silks and brocades at that, was a mystery to her. Still she had his gold in her purse, and the invitation to buy some supplies and pretty fripperies of her own, so she was not arguing; last time she had been in town she had seen a very charming printed dimity in a shop by the barbers, one that would look well on Sal, there would be no harm in starting her search there she had decided.

She watched as Gibbs disappeared down one of the alleys that crisscrossed the way to the wharf, no doubt in search of the landlord Sampson.  
'Ah well,' she thought, 'no use worrying about what he might get up to, for it would make not a mite of difference.'  
Ben clambered into his place and caught her eye as she looked away, giving her a reassuring smile,  
"He'll be fine Ma and he knows better than to bring trouble back with him. Particularly now, for I'd wager Sparrow don't want to be attracting attention at the moment. Why else would he be stayin' out of town?"  
"True enough, " she smiled back, "so let us be about our own business while there are fewer to notice it."Ben nodded and urged the mule forward again. But Polly could not suppress a slight feeling of unease at what Sampson might have to say.

***

Polly didn't think she had ever handled such stuff in her life. The silk was as such as a queen might wear and the brocades stiff with beading and fine stitchery. In soft clouds of blue and white, red and amber the silk, velvet and lace billowed across the counter, handled with due reverence by its owner who kept his potential customer at arms length from it.

The merchant had been unwilling to fetch out his finest merchandise for an up island woman, for all she was dressed in her best he knew her for that though she had been careful to chose a place that she and her family never had business. But the flash of a gold coin and the purchase with barely a barter of a whole bolt of best linen had persuaded him. Neither of them mentioned, or even gave thought to, which merchant this finery had been taken from, for goods such as these had not been come by honestly. While not saying as much Polly had let it be known that her gold had not been come by honestly either, and that the person she was buying the goods for was not one to cross. A casual mention of her daughter back home had sharpened the man's eye, the conclusion inescapable, and Polly suppressed a surge of anger that he might think she would see her kin threatened so easily, and another that he would show no surprise were he to discover who the provider of the gold was.

But then if he were told of the man's assumptions Sparrow would only smile broadly and accept the implication of his villainy with enjoyment.

However there was no time to linger, this was the third linen draper she had visited and it was time to be on their way. She made her decision quickly though it was one of the hardest she had made for a while,  
"I'll take a score yards of the blue and cream each, the same of the tawny brocade and the blue velvet and ten of the pale green, then a score of the white lawn too." She reached across and touched a card of fine Brussels lace, "this I think, and some of that braided trim, some ivory buttons and six sets of china."  
The man nodded and took the coins offered him with raised his eyebrows,  
"Do you want it delivered madam?"  
There was curiosity in his face and she knew he would give a lot to know where the goods might be headed for. Not that he was to find out, though the lady captain had been most insistent that the goods were paid for she would no more want their destination discovered than Sparrow.  
"No I'll take it now, I've protection enough be sure of that."  
There was a warning note in her voice and man hurried to sooth any ruffled feathers,  
"Of course. But might I ask what you plan to do with so much fine cloth? I had not heard of any visiting ladies of distinction."  
Hostages was what he meant and they both knew it. Polly stared at him for a moment then shrugged,  
"No harm in tellin' though the ladies name I don't rightly know." She stroked the lace with a careful finger, "it's for a bride, I'm set to work on sewing a trousseau."

***

"It won't work Jack, at least not for this business, " she raised her hand to forestall any comment, "I'm not saying there couldn't be one at another time if you took it into your head to be respectable, but not here and not now and not this one."

The sun was half way to noon and they were seated in the barn a mug of ale and a plate of bread before them. Elanor had arrived some time after the others had left and Sally, who had been enjoying some pleasant private fantasy, had not been pleased at the addition. Only the arrival of a friend from a nearby homestead had pulled her away and left them to their business, not that they were getting that much agreed.

Jack glared at her angrily,  
"Hoity toighty aren't we! Don't see why not. What's wrong with it? Mrs Jack Sparrow," he rolled the words with pleasure, "has a fine ring to it," he finished defiantly.  
Elanor sighed, not for the first time that morning,  
"I'm not saying that it doesn't."  
"Well there you are then!" he gave her his brightest smile.  
She drew a deep and steadying breath and tried reason,  
"But if you have told me anything approaching the truth about yourself, which I accept you may not have done, it's a name associated with piracy on at least five of the seven seas! A famous name, or so you would have me believe, and one that is associated with the recent fight against Lord Cutler Beckett. "  
She noted the sudden tightening of his mouth and knew that he was quite well aware of what was coming next, but she was going to say it any way.  
"It is also the name associated by certain people with a very significant item, to wit the heart of one Davy Jones. An artefact, and a name, that we do not want to risk coupling with this business, and with the young Mrs Turner, at all." She raised her eyebrows and rammed her point home, "is that not the case?"

Jack drew a resigned breath and glared at her,  
"It is. But I can see no reason why anyone should make the connection."  
She sighed and ran a hand over her neck, they had already been over this several times, neither giving ground,  
"But I can't see how we can ensure that someone, at sometime, doesn't. Can you? If not now, then at some point in the future, and possibly a not so very distant future. Is it worth running the risk of that for nothing more than vanity Jack?"  
"Vanity pshh. 'Tis not vanity!" he protested,  
"No? Then what is it?"  
He went on glaring at her, seeming lost for words for a moment, and she looked down at the mark just visible below his rolled up shirt cuff and wondered if she knew. She met his angry look and smiled slightly, softening her voice,  
"Something else you lost, Jack? Something else he took from you and that you want back. Like the Pearl, something else stolen that you'll risk everything to recover? Even for a little while. Is that it?"

For a moment something flared in his eyes, something she didn't think she wanted to read, and then he got up and stalked several paces away from her before turning in a swirl of hair and beads and with a shark's smile, his hands resting on the pistol butts still sticking up from his sash.  
"You're talkin' in riddles that make no sense darlin'. But if you must have it the answer is simple enough, charades like these are best when you stick as close to the truth as you can, and I thought it would be easy to remember. People tend to notice if a man don't respond to his own name." He raised a finger at her, "And before you object it the case in my world is that a woman can get round if she is known to be recently married. But not a man luv. So if we are to be successful it would not do for me to forget who I am, now would it?"  
Elanor shook her head,  
"I doubt you would ever do that, and you've played games like this before without doing so if Mr Gibbs is right. But irrespective of the success or otherwise of your previous misdemeanours I still maintain we cannot risk coupling your name with a young woman who could be identified as Elizabeth Swann. So whether you like it or not we need another."

The shark smile faded and he looked at her in silence for a moment, then he grimaced and shrugged, before returning to the hale bale table and sinking down onto the straw. He looked both pensive and resigned,  
"Perhaps you are right, I told you the truth, 'tis a famous name right enough, and there is no point in taking unnecessary chances. So what do you suggest?"  
"I don't know, unless….. is Sparrow really your name. Your birth name I mean."  
That brought another black look to his face,  
"What if it isn't?"  
"Well couldn't we use your…..." she stopped herself from saying real name just in time, "previous name? You would remember that wouldn't you?"  
"Were a long time ago luv, and anyways that name is pirate too."  
"As well known as yours?"  
"No, not now. At least… not outside the Brethren. Not for some time. It's more than ten years since the old rogue who wished it on me sailed under colours. Well until the recent …. events anyways."  
"So it wouldn't necessarily be associated with this business?"  
"Maybe not."  
"So what name are we talking about?"  
Jack stared at her for a moment longer then he rolled his eyes and gave in,  
"Teague."

Elanor thought about that for a moment, chewing on some bread,  
"Hmm, Gaelic, yes?"  
"Could be."  
Jack seemed reluctant to discuss it, making her wonder about his father.  
"Irish? Scots?"  
"Could be."  
"Irish then, I see. Would that be a problem? In my world at this time it might have been, but is it here?"  
"Can be, but not where we are goin'."  
"So it might do?"  
"I suppose so."  
"Do you object to it doing so?"  
"I'd prefer not to. Been long time since I used it."  
"But you'd remember it."  
" I'd do that right enough."  
She sighed,  
"But others might too I suppose. Maybe that is a risk."  
Jack turned away again but not fast enough that she missed the look of relief on his face as he buried it in his ale.

"So what name would do?" she muttered.  
He raised his head slowly, savouring the ale before swallowing, a look of great and devilish joy on his face, he clicked his fingers and pointed his mug at her  
"Ha! I know the very one, and neither of us will forget it."

***

They found Anamaria in the market place at the family fish stall. It was getting on to mid day and main part of the days trade was over, the maids and housewives departed to their other household duties. Polly had brought fish from Anamaria in the past and so she knew the girl, but she didn't underestimate the task ahead, not given Jack's involvement in the matter. The relationship between the pirate and the fisher girl seemed a complicated one that Polly had not quite managed to fathom as yet, but could guess at. She supressed a sigh, Sal would not enjoy her addition to the household anymore than she liked the lady captain.

Polly watched the stall holder a for a moment, noting the look of fierce concentration on the turned down face as the strong hands scraped fish scales, dried hard as shell, and transparent as the recently purchased silks, from a long bladed knife. The girl was pretty, no arguing that, her skin a dark honey colour, clear and unmarked, unusual in one who had been raised in the poorer part of the town. The face was unusual too, the high cheekbones and large, wide, eyes giving her face that many men might lust after, or rather a face that hinted at a body they might lust after, though the loose shift and homespun breaches made it hard to know. It was something of note that a girl looking like her had avoided the occupation most common for the pretty poor in such a town.

Polly sighed again, pretty, once she would have thought the girl beautiful, but, like her own Sal, she thought sadly, the lass paled to a candle beside the sun of the woman who sailed the white ship. Yet as she watched the girl moving around her stall with such confidence she thought that this Anamaria might have more in common with the lady captain than Jack would find comfortable.

She watched her a moment longer making sure that no one was about to approach then stepped down from the cart.

Anamaria looked up with a brief smile, then turned her eyes back to her knife,  
"Not much left now, unless it's chicken scraps you're seeking, got some heads and tails if that is the case, and some innards too, though they'd not travel well."  
"Not fish I'm seekin' but the seller." Polly said carefully.  
That brought the dark eyes up again,  
"Me? What would you be wantin' with me?" The smile had been replaced by a slight frown, "We've no business that I know of."  
Polly spoke quietly,  
"Not me lass, but a certain captain of our knowin'"  
The frown deepened,  
"Captain? What captain would you be knowin' ma'am? Know a sailor when I see one and you don't fit," She inclined her head towards Ben "no more does that son of yours if that is what he is."

Polly nodded calmly.  
"True enough, but my man is, and you know of him too, goes by the name of Gibbs."  
The hands working on the knife were still for a moment  
"Gibbs? "  
She seemed about to deny all knowledge but another long look at Polly's face changed her mind.  
"Knew one called Gibbs once, though I'd be surprised to hear he was any woman's man, loved the rum to much for that is my recollection."  
"Ay he do that, " Polly agreed ruefully, "But a good man for all of it and one I'm happy enough to have about me when it suits us both." She gave the girl a look as searching as the one she was being given, "Lot of strange things happened these past couple of years and I'd not deny that anyone who sailed through them might need a little nip or two to chase away the memories."  
Anamaria gave a snort,  
"The Gibbs I knew never needed any excuse."  
"Aye that might still be true too, but I've no complaint." Polly paused, looking around and making sure that no one was near, nor taking interest. There was no one but even so she dropped her voice further still, " Though the man loves the Pearl nearly as much as his captain."

The young woman's hands went on cleaning her knife but hereye remained locked on Polly's face and her expression became wary,  
"That the captain you speak of? Heard he was dead."  
Something in her voice made Polly think she had taken no pleasure in those rumours and a hint of sympathy crept into her voice,  
"Ay, but you'll have heard that he and the Pearl were back here too, for I doubt there much that happens about the town that you don't know."  
That earned her another hard stare,  
"Maybe, though nothing to say it were true."  
"Were true. I know it."  
Anamaria's expression hardened further,  
"And if it were, what would he want with me? Has his ship, nothing else he needs."  
Polly tutted but was not suprised at the truculence in the girls voice, she hadn't expected this to be easy.  
"Normally that may be so, but this ain't normal and it ain't so. He has need of your ……expertise and he is willing to pay well for it, if that is your pleasure."  
"Only pleasure I'm likely to get from that one." Anamaria snapped.  
"That true? I heard he got you another boat, and a fine one too."  
Anamaria drew a deep breath, but her scowl stayed in place,  
"Maybe that's the case, can be generous enough when the time is right. " her mouth twisted, " but even so why would you think I'd want to serve the interests of the wretch. Nearly got us all killed."  
"Nearly. You're still standing here it seems to me, have a fine new boat that brings you a good living and the respect given to one who sailed with him. No need for you to earn your living dodging groping hands in some tavern, not on your back neither. No need for you to marry a man for a roof over your head and bread on your table. Seems that you haven't done so bad for knowing him."

Anamaria glared at her,  
"Maybe. But I was a good mate, no need for him to leave me on the dock side!"  
"That what he did?" Polly asked curiously, she had wondered under what circumstances the girl had left the Pearl for she had not heard of her being with child.  
The resentment smouldered in the pretty face, that and something like hurt.  
"Aye, that's what he did. Sends me off to see my mother, telling me he had word that she was ill, then sails away and leaves me behind liike some tossed away glove."  
"Maybe he felt your family needed you at time of trouble."  
"Trouble, was no trouble! Nothing wrong with my mother, nor any other of my kin."  
She pointed her finger at Polly in a gesture reminiscent of the man they were discussing,  
"But it was for me to decide if there were, not that rum swilling rake. No, he had some plan afoot, something he didn't want me to share in. He and your man started getting into huddles not four months after we snatched him from the noose that damned fancy piece from Port Royale put around his neck. Said nothin' but I knew they were up to something, they'd go quiet if I came near, was clear they were planning and they didn't want me to be a part of it." She scowled, "Well I wish them joy of what ever treasure it was they went after for its sure that neither of them would hold onto it for long."  
Her words ended on an angry hiss but there was something close to grief in her eyes, something that told Polly to tread gently.  
"Don't think it were treasure they were looking for lass. Were you the only one they left ashore?"

Anamaria looked put out,  
"Well no, left a couple of the others too. One near too old to sail, and one not far from being crippled, and Hoey too, though he's as close to daft as its possible to be and still breathe so don't count. Don't tell me that makes it any better!"  
Polly sighed  
"Can see that you might think that," she sighed. "Don't know what did happen but I know that it didn't end well. I do know that the girl from Port Royale lost her father in the matter."  
"Her! Anamaria almost spat, "might have known she would be a part of it if it were trouble."  
"Cost her dear enough from what I hear. Cost her life, and her end was not easy. At the hands of a pirate called Sao Feng."  
Anamaria's angry look faded, and one of shocked and reluctant pity replaced it,  
"Well she was an arrogant piece, but I'd not wish her that. Heard stories of him and they were not pretty. I'd be surprised if….. that.... captain…. had any part in that though for I know…. He .. had crossed Sao Feng once before on account of a girl."  
Polly doubted it too but contented herself with a shrug,  
"Well it's done now and neither of us knows the truth of it and never likely to. But I need be about my business so give me a straight answer, the captain we spoke of has need of you, so will you come? A week maybe a little more and you can return here richer and with no need to ever see him again."

Anamaria looked at her in silence for a while and then she tossed her head and gave a small and chilly smile,  
"What need has he of me now then?"  
"A need that only you can meet girl, so what do you say? Quick now, for you will have things to do before we leave and we need to be on our way."  
Anamaria looked away and started to gather together the wicker mats and baskets that had held her catch, her expression still tight and distant,  
"And I say again, what need does he have of me?"  
Polly sighed, and leaned close to the dark bent head.  
"His wedding Anamaria, he needs you for his wedding."

***

It was dark by the time the cart pulled onto the track to the house and most of the journey had been completed in silence. Gibbs had been lost in thought from the moment they had picked him up on the outskirts of the town, and his frown was more persistent than had been even that morning. He'd drunk a fair bit of rum Polly was guessing but he seemed sober enough, as if the dark thoughts that kept his mouth set in that straight line had chased away the fumes of the drink. Ben and Anamaria leaned against the covered cloth in the back of the cart, stiff and wary of each other. As they had started the journey up the coast road the girl had pulled a broad brimmed felt hat over her eyes as if she intended to sleep, but Polly would get guess that she got little of it.

As they turned in though the gate posts Ben sat straighter and stared at the house in concern, Polly could not blame him for the house was a blaze of lights and the sound of a fiddle drifted towards them on the wind. As they got closer Polly could see that the small compound was full of people, and they were setting tables and laughing. Closer still and she could see that food was being set upon the tables and a barrel was being breached beside the barn door. The figures resolved themselves into her neighbours, even the children, all dressed in their best and wreathed in smiles, as they waved and welcomed her home.

Jack Sparrow was in the thick of it, minus coat and pistols he was wearing what looked to be a new shirt and breeches, his usual sash replaced by one of vibrant oriental silk. Even the beads in his hair seemed polished. As the cart came to a halt before the barn he swaggered over to them his arms stretched wide in flamboyant greeting,  
"Welcome home, and a fine night it's going to be."  
He caught sight of the girl now standing in the back of the cart and his smile faded a little, but he squared his shoulders and came forward to grasp her hand, helping her down from the cart with courtly grace whether she wished it or not.  
"Anamaria luv, 'tis an age since I saw you, and very well you look too."  
"Since you left me on the dockside you mean."  
She swung her hand and dealt him a ringing slap across the face.  
Polly heard Ben draw a deep breath and saw him start to move towards the pirate, but Sparrow merely swallowed hard and smiled, apparently shamefaced, at the angry girl,  
"Well I deserved that I suppose," was all he said.

Polly looked on in astonishment as Anamaria crossed her arms and glared at him,  
"Yes. You. Did."  
Sparrow rubbed his face and tested his jaw as if it might be broken,  
"Not lost yer fire I see, always was a fierce thing as I recall."  
The girl nodded once and then pointed at him,  
"You left me behind. Tricked me into going ashore then sailed off and left me behind."  
"Did not!" Jack protested.  
"Yes. You. Did."  
"Did not! Your mother was ill, couldn't come between a girl and her sick mother now could I? Would be a villainous thing to do would that!"  
"You sailed away and left me!"  
Jack wriggled, there was no other word for it,  
"Well… had pressing business at sea luv and you with a sick mother an all, well seemed for the best for all concerned."  
"My mother was not ill!"  
He looked astonished.  
"Was she not? Must have got the message wrong then, could have sworn it said that you were urgently needed at home."

Before Anamaria could summon a reply to that obvious lie Gibbs spoke up.  
"What's going on Jack, all these tables and food and drink and the like?"  
Polly had been about to ask the same. Jack turned to him with a smile,  
"Preparations, Mr Gibbs preparations."  
"For what?" Ben asked.  
The smile turned to confusion,  
"For the party lad, for the party."  
"What party?" Gibbs demanded  
"Our party of course."  
He still seemed at a loss for their lack of understanding.

"I'm sorry for all this Polly, I've told him, but won't listen, and your neighbours seem set on supporting him in the madness."  
Elanor had appeared, but she remained standing in the shadow of the barn. Behind her Polly could see more people putting up what looked to be greenery around the barn.  
Jack sighed,  
"I've told you, 'tis not madness, there has to be a party."  
It sounded as if he had been repeating that for some hours. Elanor sighed in her turn, it sounded like she had been doing that for hours too, and smiled at Polly,  
"He says he likes a wedding," she said apologetically.  
"Love," Jack corrected, " I said I love a wedding."  
Elanor gave Polly a droll look,  
"Surprising as it seems that even includes his own, and no I don't believe it either."

Jack swaggered forward coming to a halt in front of the woman in the shadows; reaching out he caught her hand and patted it gently,  
"Now luv, that's no way to start married life is it?" He spoke caressingly, "Can't start not believing yer husband, not on yer wedding day, that's for later. Nothing to look forward to if you do the whole thing in one go."  
Behind him Jack heard Anamaria gasp slightly and then swear softly and he turned with his most brilliant and golden smile.  
"But where are me manners, haven't introduced you have I? Elanor this is Anamaria, the best woman who ever sailed the Pearl," something seemed to occur to him and he looked suddenly uncertain, "well until now that is. Other female sailing company excepted, of course."  
His voice tailed off but catching sight of Anamaria's frown he smiled again and bowed,  
"Anamaria, this is Elanor, me soon to be beloved spouse."  
He straightened up his smile taking on a sly edge as he wriggled his eyebrows at the group of silent people still standing around the cart,  
"Mrs Norrington."


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14 Elizabeth**

It was a dark coast, even allowing for the stormy quality of the night. Folded in on itself too, secretive and unfriendly looking even when the sun was high; a hard place where pinnacles of rock guarded secret coves, the landward side of them deep in shadow.

Now, with night several hours old, the sands were pits of darkness at the foot of even darker cliffs, their faces shadowed masks of rock even when the sulking moon showed its face. As she watched the steep cliffs slide past Elanor felt that the place had a cold look to it, though that might have been nothing more than the edge on the wind that reminded her that had moved some way north and that it was not yet summer. But that aside it did not look to be an easy place and as the Dawn Chaser edged towards its goal she couldn't avoid the question,  
"Why here?"  
"Why not here?" Was Jack's laconic reply.

He stood beside her at the rail and turned his face towards the shore, offering no other comment; just watching another headland fall behind them in silence, yet feeling her eyes upon him all the same. He held out for as long as he could but finally he felt the press of inevitability and half turned his head to meet the expected steady gaze and raised brows. Knowing that she would not give way he sighed and flipped a hand,  
"Seemed safe, her maid, the one as was before Beckett's arrival that is, had kin settled here abouts and Teague knew some too, men and women who owed him their compliance in the matter."  
It was not explination enough of course and he knew it wouldn't be,  
"But why go anywhere at all?" She questioned, "Wouldn't it have been simpler for her to just stay put?"  
Jack shrugged with a touch of impatience,  
"She couldn't stay at Shipwreck, there was nothing for her there and they would not have had her anyways, so it had to be somewhere else. Here was safer than most places, and it was one where she might have been abandoned."  
"Abandoned Jack?"  
He nodded with a rattle of beads,  
"Aye." He paused for a moment, unsure whether to say more, before he gave her a serious look " Teague proposed but I agreed. Was in me mind that at sometime it might be safe for her to be found and claim her place in the world, and here was good for that. Sort of place they might come lookin' in time and with the right….. suggestion."  
A small grimace flitted across his face as if he was considering, with some annoyance, his failure to predict what had happened since.  
" Which given the turn events have taken now makes it a bad place for her to be." he said eventually pairing the words with a small, hard, smile, "So she cannot stay, and we must move her."

Elanor watched him and nodded but followed the gesture with a sceptical look,  
"I understand that but why not just take her back to Shipwreck? It's fortified you say so it's unlikely that it would fall easily."  
Jack returned her look with one that was cool and measuring, but with that same hint of impatience,  
"We've been over this luv, nothing's changed. The heart is the sticking point and was then too. If anyone there were to find out about it then we would be no better off than we are now, worse perhaps for there are those at Shipwreck who might not understand anything other than that some people would give a lot of gold for it."  
Elanor's mouth twisted in a gesture of reluctant acceptance,  
"And auction it from the safety of a fortress stronghold."  
"Aye." Jack smiled wolfishly, "Pirates luv, Shipwreck is full of pirates, what else would you expect?"  
"Hmm. But Teague did not."  
That brought a grunt of something that sounded like grudging humour from her companion,  
"Teague is Keeper, no one who makes it that far is a fool, and he is a ruthless bugger and used to dealing with those who are fools and greedy to boot. That's why he'd not have her stay, not even a short while. Why he suggested this place and agreed to ferry her here when I could not. That and the fact that if William's fate were known then it was likely that they would dispose of her to avoid the risk of the Dutchman coming visiting. Lot of men of the sword there darlin', and worse still, women with children, and they are as little given to mercy or pity if they think their whelps are threatened as a rich man is when his watch is stolen."  
"Can't argue with that." Elanor agreed sadly.

Jack shot her a worried look, having caught the bitterness in her voice. Not for the first time he wished he knew more about her history and the strange world she hailed from.  
"Not yerself though? You'll not go back on our accord? Not and put Anamaria's lessons to waste."  
He had enjoyed watching Elanor being tricked out in silk and lace, Polly and her neighbours had done them proud, but he'd enjoyed watching Anamaria trying to teach her to look playful and submissive even more. Once, years ago he had spent some time on African shores and he had known very well what that sight had reminded him of, and he'd gained much pleasure from watching a tiger trying to teach a lioness to play the kitten. The current risk had been worth it just for that.

Elanor smiled,  
"I've no whelps to protect Jack, I've told you that. I'll keep my part of the bargain, after all the effort Anamaria put in to trying to make a lady of your world out of me it would be churlish not to."  
Jack nodded graciously, hiding his relief beneath a solemn face,  
"Very well you did too."  
He tilted his head slightly and gave her a sideways look, his voice taking on a stern note,  
"Though as your legally wedded husband I'm not of a mind to see you parading about the town in that green dress, the one with the cream lace and ribbons at the …." his fingers fluttered in silent emphasis, "…. bosom, you can keep that one for our own hearth if you please."  
The danger had been part paid for by that sight too.

That banished her sad look and she threw back her head and laughed,  
"I'm not sure that your advice on the matter of a respectable women's dress is anything I should listen to, and a party, even one lasting a week or more, does not count as legally wedded. For which you should be very grateful let me say. You'd never cope with me for a wife."  
Her look sent his brows up to his scarf,  
"Would I not?"  
"No." the laugh was still written in her face.  
He stepped close to her, his eyes challenging while his mouth curved in slight but knowing smile,  
"Sure of that luv?" he purred.  
Elanor simply held his gaze for a moment then let her eyes drift quickly up and down him, before she inclined her head closer to his,  
"Oh yes." She purred back.  
"Oh!" Jack backed suddenly as if stung, a look of almost childlike disappointment flitting across his face for a second or two before the pirate reasserted himself, then he leaned close again, his eyes taking on the smouldering look he seemed able to turn on and off at will.  
"Well maybe you shouldn't be."  
Elanor seemed to consider that for a moment then she grinned,  
"Yes I should."

She saw a momentary uncertainly flash across his face and decided that was enough and so she turned away and looked back towards the shoreline, her smile fading.  
"But now isn't the time for play acting Jack; business presses. The next cove should be the target and I don't think this is the time for silks and lace."  
With only a momentary frown of disappointment Jack turned his mind back to their current concerns, the flirtatiousness abandoned like an empty bottle,  
"I'd agree on that luv. This is the quiet part and I'd rather no one saw us at all. Better that she just vanishes with no one knowing the whys and wherefore ofs."  
Elanor nodded,  
"I know, just an open door and let people draw their own conclusions. Which they will of course. But she's not been here long and not many will grieve, and those that do will be all the more convincing if anyone should put two and two together and come looking for her here."  
"Agreed, "Jack nodded, glad for her pragmatic acceptance of an unfortunate necessity, "Won't fool Teague o'course, if he hears of it, which he will. But he'll know better than to ask questions he don't want the answers too."  
He shrugged,  
"I'm not planning on returning to Shipwreck anyways soon so he'll have to come lookin' if he decides he wants to know, and he'll not do that."

On the helm a light blinked Ariadne's notice that they had arrived at their destination, the trimming of canvas and the splash of an anchor signifying their halt at the edge of the bay.

Elanor looked out into the darkness, no light betraying the small apology for a port that sprawled around the narrow inlet between high cliffs, another thought flitting into her head without warning.  
"I'm glad that Anamaria decided to sail with Gibbs," she said quietly.  
A wayward moonbeam crept from behind a cloud and stroked the coastline with a finger of brightness before fading into the shadows of the cliffs, in its wan light Jack could see her thoughtful frown, and smiled slightly,  
"Aye, though the man himself was not so pleased at the decision."  
"You aren't concerned that she will decide to take the Pearl for her own?"  
'Ah," Jack thought, 'so that was what's in her mind. Seems she's got the measure of Anamaria right enough.'  
"Not this time." He responded carelessly, "not when you promised her more gold than she can make in a year or two. Which I've no doubt you did, you being a sensible woman. Not that she would have done it anyways. She and I have settled our difference and she's a good lass, good pirate, for all the slaps and snarls. She'll not renege on a bargain once she has struck it."  
He gave her a brief golden smile,  
"With Barbossa there as a reminder about what can happen when you cross Jack Sparrow none of them will."  
He turned his eyes towards the shoreline and frowned,  
"Mind I'm not sure that she won't throw Hector over the side when Gibb's back is turned, but then, not our doin' if she does, and as you say we have other business to hand."  
He opened his glass and scanned the dark line of surf that nibbled at the cliffs for a moment then he closed it again with a snap and turned on his heel,  
"Time to go."

***

They had said a hurricane was coming, and Groves had no problem with believing it, for the clouds flew across the sky as if pursued by the devil and the flags at the fort flapped so wildly they must be tattered before the morning. He pushed his face deeper into his scarf and reflected that even the weather seemed affected by the uncertainty Beckett had left in his wake. Since his death the seas around the places he had stalked in search of pirates had been less kindly than was usual, something that had made their favouring of the Black Pearl all the more noticeable. It was as if the waters had become colder and more hostile and the wind more unruly and unkind. The sugar plantations were feeling it nearly as badly as the sailors, for those winds blew in more strongly, gusting and shifting in direction, more often laden with rain and flattening the crops even when too weak to flatten the buildings. Though the sun still raged during the daytime, hot enough to draw the wind's venom, at night it could be nearly as chill as a poor English spring, and on a night such as this one, wild and dark, it could almost feel like a London winter.

As he left the main street the wind spat a louder burst of rain, sending lanterns flickering and flares hissing and he pulled his threadbare coat closer around him thankful that most people would already be at home with the shutters barred, and those who had no home to hide in would be fighting for shelter wherever it might be found. For most that would mean the taverns away from the waterfront and so some distance from his own objective. With luck he would meet few people other than those with a reason to ignore him and hurry on their way.

Even so he was glad of feel of the dagger in his boot and the weight of the pistol in his pocket; where he was going the Navy was not popular and the risks of summary throat slitting if caught were nearly as great as they would have been in Tortuga.

As he slid quickly down another dark and rubbish strewn alley behind the sugar warehouses he wondered why he had been summoned in this way and to this place. What it was that Hathaway had to say to him that could not be said in comfort at the fort?

Whatever it was it couldn't be good news.

***

Elizabeth Turner, now finally getting used to being Bess Turner a seaman's wife and ex maid to the late Elizabeth Swann, crept down to the kitchen with a knife in her hand, wondering why this was happening to her.

Around her the now familiar cottage was quiet and dark and outside the shuttered windows the night was no less so, only the rustle of leaves breaking the silence of the garden. If had been less still she might not have heard the creak of the door and though there had been no sound she could distinguish since she remained convinced that there was someone in the room downstairs. If she was right then there could be no innocent reason for their presence and few guilty ones, for there was little worth stealing here. Which left only a handful of motivations for this visitation, and none of them pleasant. But she had not thought there was anyone in this small community who meant her that kind of malice, certainly not at the moment.

She had been careful to do nothing that might bring her notoriety or resentment since she and her once maid had arrived in this dismal place nearly three months before, and with just a trunk containing a few plain dresses and a small purse of coins to her name. Those well accustomed to lying to survive had carefully crafted the story they told, and it was soon well known that the two women had both been maids in the Swann household, paid off when the Governor died. After the stories told by passing ships of Port Royale and Beckett no one was surprised that they had taken the opportunity to leave and settle here for peace and freedom and the chance to be close to Estrella's kin. Within a week everyone knew, too, that Bess was wedded to a young sailor who had taken the pirate side and had now fled so seek his fortune in the southern seas. It had been hoped that such a story would protect her both by assuring her respectability in the eyes of the community elders while allowing the faint hint of threat of reprisals should her husband's comrades ever find out that anyone had harmed her.

That a pirate ship had brought them here was also widely spoken of, though behind their hands, even though no one could name it or claim to have seen it's colours. This far the stories had seemed to have achieved there object. Now she could only wonder where she had gone wrong and what it was going to cost her.

Coached by Estrella, her mentor, and currently her only friend, she had lived a blameless life these past months, wearing her skirts with modesty and being sure to practise economy like every other good housewife of the town. She had taken this cottage within the first week, with Estrella two doors down the street and with the company of a half witted girl who lived in and did the heavier housework. After all, as Estrella was quick to point out, they had been upstairs maids not bonded skivvies. In so small a community, fewer than a few hundred souls, and one whose concerns were largely inward looking, she had little fear of the truth being discovered.

So she had settled to a new routine, one as unfamiliar as once a ship's had been, a life where she baked her bread and grew her herbs and sewed her linen like any other young wife or widow in a community who knew that men could be lost to the sea for years at a time. Any other past was carefully hidden, though she spoke of Will often, and she hugged the memory of him to herself like a warm blanket on a cold night. For the rest she did not allow herself to think of the past or of what might have been; and one name she did not allow herself to think of at all. In general she succeeded so well that when she did think of it her memories had a dream like quality that made her wonder if any of it was real at all. But it had been real and the shadow of it hung over her still; she knew and planned accordingly. Everyone in the street was aware that she slept with her husband's sword beside her, just in case any of the local lads got foolish ideas after a drink too many, but no one, other than Estrella, knew of the pistol under her pillow, or the knife hidden beneath her full skirts.

Yet she doubted that she was as alone as she might seem to be. If she suspected that the surly man who turned up every week to sharpen the kitchen wear and do a little carpentry was Teague's man she couldn't prove it, nor would she deny that she was glad of it. The travelling smith with the dragging leg who had settled for a while in the old forge at the end of the lane, while his damaged ankle recovered, had seemed familiar too. Teague's doing again she suspected, for his code probably required he protect her even though her kingship was fled with the pirate fleet.

How was it then that having settled down to a life of harmless domesticity, a placid existence more than welcomed once she realised her condition, here she was creeping down the stairs with a knife in one hand and a pistol in the other?

The parlour door was closed yet it did not fit the frame so well and from within the room she could hear soft footed movements and the occasional chink as something was put down. Quietly she eased herself closer, gripping the knife tighter and setting her ear against the wood. The room had fallen silent but some sixth sense warned she that had not been mistaken and that there was human flesh the other side of it. Carefully she stuck the knife into her belt and reached down for the doorknob, so fixed on the room behind that door that she caught the sound of a soft foot behind her a fraction of a second too late and both pistol and knife were rendered useless as strong arms pinioned her from behind. Panic surged and she gathered her strength to resist her attacker, but the arms, stronger than her own, closed tighter. A head was bent close and she felt breath stir her hair,  
"Easy Mrs Turner, no need for concern."

The voice in her ear was low and calm and sounded to be female. Elizabeth struggled to free herself knowing that she had just seconds to undo her attackers advantage, but it was without effect and she was gripped tighter. It took a moment more for her to realise that the body she was pressed so firmly against was most certainly female.

The surprise of it halted her struggles just as the door opened further and a familiar face appeared. Dark eyes dropped to the pistol she still gripped in her pinioned hand, and an equally familiar grin glinted in the light from the single candle behind him,  
"Elizabeth, still looking for a fight I see. I wonder if William knows what it is that he has married?"  
The voice was a whisper but there was no mistaking it,  
"Jack!"

***

"The Spanish have moved three further ships to bolster the contingent at Havana, all men 'o war and heavily armed. If that was not enough the East India Company is becoming increasingly strident in their demands that we find this heart, or the pirate who knows where it is, and hand them over."

Hathaway was sprawled in a rickety chair in the darkest corner of old Port Royal's darkest tavern.  
"If there had ever been any doubt that this heart was a threat then that fact alone dispels it."  
His voice was low but it carried across the greasy table well enough.  
"The Governor thinks that an open declaration of war by the Spanish cannot be far away, and the continued presence of officers from the East India Company this close to the trade routes will probably be their excuse."

Groves jumped and spilt his ale, it had been enough of a surprise to be summoned to meet his captain in this insalubrious place, but to be made privy to such details was an even greater shock. These matters were the concern of Governor Thynne and the admiral, and while he was less surprised at Hathaway's acceptance into their confidence than he would once have been his own inclusion into the select circle of those knowing was unwelcome, for it could only mean some further role in the matter was planned for him. Not a conventional role either

Just as when they were at Tortuga Hathaway seemed quite at ease in this den of thieves and beggars, and while he was not the filthy wretch of their wanderings around the pirate port he certainly didn't look a navy man. His shirt was grey and worn and open at his throat to show a scarf that had seen better days, while his coat had the look of threadbare hopsack. The breeches just visible beneath the coattails were definitely homespun, and held up by another scarf of dubious quality and origin. His pale gold hair was clean enough, but pulled behind him with a tattered ribbon and mostly covered by a battered soft hat, but the hands that grasped the mug were stained with oil and pitch. Yet Hathaway for all that seemed as unconcerned as if he were in full uniform in the Governor's drawing room.

Groves himself he had followed orders and raided one of the rag stalls in the market for an old coat, a reworked shirt with turned cuffs, and a pair of canvas breeches. But he had not been able to bring himself to wear them as they had been bought, as a result they were too clean and well pressed to look unremarkable here. He eased himself further into the shadows and wiped the sticky table with his over clean shirtsleeve, he saw Hathaway's eyes follow the move and was glad that the other man felt no need to comment.

Not for the first time Groves wondered what Hathaway was that he could span the worlds of rich and poor so easily, and again some part of his mind warned him that he didn't want to know.

"But why do they linger? Why will they not leave? We have done all we can, but it as if the man has disappeared off the face of the earth and taken his ship with him," he whispered in response. "Do they not know that?"  
Hathaway nodded,  
"As he did once before. I am coming to the conclusion that Beckett may not have been quite as deluded as the king's advisors first thought Mr Groves. Perhaps Jack Sparrow was indeed sent to the locker and perhaps he has returned there. But you can hardly expect the gentlemen of the East India Company to accept our word on it when so much is at stake."  
"The locker?" Groves had to struggle to keep his voice low, "I doubt it. Beckett was quite sure that Sparrow would do anything and sell anyone to stay away from where ever it was that he had been. He said as much to Mercer, I heard him. He seemed most pleased at the idea."  
He looked down at his drink,  
"I think he hated Sparrow beyond reason and always intended to throw the pirate back to Jones."

Hathaway's mouth twisted in something that looked to be disgust,  
"I've no doubt that he did Groves. The story of Beckett and Sparrow stretches back a long way and it does not make pretty reading, and you may take that on my say so. Beckett was not a honourable man, nor even a pleasant one, but he was never more poisonous than where Jack Sparrow was concerned. He waited a long time to get his revenge and he would have wallowed in it."  
He took a swallow from his mug and looked at Groves over its rim, reading the miserable expression more easily than his companion would have liked.  
"It was always going to be a bloody business however it was done, and very unfortunate for Miss Swann and her betrothed that they got caught up in it. His enmity was all towards the pirate, and while it is true that Beckett didn't like Swann either he would never have taken any action against the man and his daughter had it not been a way to get at Sparrow."  
Groves opened his mouth to ask revenge for what but closed it again at Hathaway's look; a sudden certainty was spawned,  
"You knew Sparrow, and Beckett didn't you captain?"

Hathaway took a long swallow of ale and rolled it around his mouth before he swallowed,  
"Yes, or rather encountered not knew, I was not of a position at that time to meet either of them as equals."  
He saw the surprise and curiosity spark in Groves face and continued,  
"Sparrow wasn't Sparrow then Mr Groves and he wasn't a pirate, just as Beckett wasn't a lord, only an ambitious official from an unremarkable family of comfortable country squires of the kind England breeds so well. His rise was as abrupt as Sparrow's fall and both were rooted in the same soil."  
Hathaway's eyes drifted to the flickering candle, its spindly flame providing a pathway to the past,  
"I've done much in my life that some might not approve of, but never without a pressing need and I've done little that I am ashamed of, or repent of. But once I did do something that causes me self-disgust to this day and that was at Beckett's behest and to Sparrow's detriment."  
He took another drink and smiled a smile as cold as Groves thought he had ever seen,  
"Have no fear, I do not feel I owe Sparrow anything for I had no choice and he would not have expected anything else of me, but for all that I would do much to make sure that Beckett's plans are thwarted, even now that he is dead. But that aside I know that we must make the heart safe for England's sake , if a heart is what this all about, if we do not then there will be war of the proportions not seen before and one from which we may not emerge victorious."

Groves had thought the same but hearing it from Hathaway sent his heart into his worn out boots, he hid his dismay as best he could,  
"But where else do we look? Where do we turn now? What is there left to do?"  
"We think Mr Groves, think, and we speak to anyone who might have known Sparrow or taken part in the voyage to this pirate stronghold. Then we try to put ourselves in Jack Sparrow's head and understand what it was that he held over Jones and what he might have done with it, whatever it is."  
"And then?"  
Hathaway drained his mug and got to his feet, beckoning Groves to follow him  
"Then we get to it before anyone else does, what ever that costs."

***

Elanor stood at the window and stared at the street as the moon played cat and mouse amongst the heavy clouds, sending an unpredictable pattern of light and shadows to pattern the lane outside. As the conversation flowed and ebbed behind her she concentrated on watching for any sign that they had been seen and that a hue and cry had been launched after them. The lane was unpaved and they could not rely on sound to warn them of unwelcome visitors, so she watched their backs as Jack tried to explain to an angry young woman while actually telling her nothing at all.

Not that she could blame the other woman for her reluctance. Not in the circumstances. That was something they had not allowed for and Jack had said little when he had lit the other candle and had seen the unmistakable cause of her caution emerge from the shadows. He had frozen for a moment and a hint of surprise had been followed by a shadow of annoyance at a situation that must complicate things, then he had given a lop sided smile and muttered,  
"Not a eunuch after all it seems," just loud enough for them both to hear.  
Then his frown had deepened and he had caught at Elizabeth's wrist,  
"It is William's child is it?"  
The tone of his voice was hard and cold and his expression as forbidding as she thought she had ever seen it. Elizabeth Turner had responded to both word and look with a voluble fury that caused Elanor to pull her away from Jack and clasp a hand across her mouth, snapping a peremptory  
"Quiet!" to both of them.

Elizabeth had subsided into silence with a stormy look in Jack's direction, while he had responded with an unrepentant smile and shrug of his shoulders that was all she was likely to get in the way of apology. Elanor could understand his question, if it was not Will Turners child then trouble was certainly brewing, but she could wish he had shown more tact in the matter. It seemed that he still felt some debt to young Mr Turner despite his claims to having paid them. Or maybe it was just male fellow feeling, for this was a time when it was a wise child that knew its father, certainly amongst Jack's circle.

Either way he seemed relieved at Elizabeth's response and was unlikely to bait her further, while she had fallen back on angry looks and offended dignity. Satisfied that both protagonists had remembered the dangers of the situation she returned to her watching, but she could not blame Elizabeth for her anger for at the moment she was the most threatened of them all.

It was not a large town, even as towns of this time went, but it was just large enough to hide one woman. Provided she did nothing to attract attention that was. Being visited by a man such as Jack certainly counted as attracting attention. Elanor was no fool and had some grasp of history, she didn't need Jack to tell her how precarious Elizabeth's position could be and how closely her neighbours would watch her for any sign of behaviour they would consider impropriety. If she gave any substance to their baser expectations, or the rumours of the gossipmongers, then her life would become very hard indeed.

From what Jack had told her it seemed that his father had taken upon himself to provide her with both provenance and support here but there was only so much he could do. Her own money could not be claimed if she were to remain dead, and for the moment that seemed the safest option, but Jack was right, with no money and the connection with Port Royale and all that had happened there, she could not stay here for long. With the crowned heads of the world interested in her husband, or rather his heart, her current condition made her situation perilous. Elanor didn't doubt Jack's assessment any longer, Elizabeth's, and her child's, only chance of longer term peace and security lay with a new identity, one with no connection to Beckett and his pirate war. A future that offerred no loose ends that might unravel. In the meantime there must be no shadow of doubt cast upon her.

Which was why she was here of course, for that had not been part of the original plan, at least not in Jack's mind. Not when he had sat with booted feet crossed on the Pearl's table, glass in hand and rings bright in the candlelight, but no brighter than his confident smile.  
"I'll visit late." he said calmly, "When everyone is bedded down. No need for anyone to see me."  
"And if they do and it goes wrong, then all you will have done is convince them that she is what they want her to be. Which means that some nasty things could happen to her before we have time to get her away."  
"Why? She can leave the next day."  
"That rather depends upon where she has secreted the chest with the heart in it doesn't it? Somehow I doubt that she keeps it in the flour bin."  
Jack had frowned but had to give way on the substance of her objection, and he had flicked an imperious hand in her direction,  
"Well if you've any other ideas let's be hearin' them."  
"We'll both go. " She raised her hand to forestall his comments, "I know she needs to be warned before we start the game for real, and it will be far too late for a formal call, so we go as ourselves. Pirates. But I'll make sure it is clear that I'm not a man. At least that way if anyone comes upon us they are far more likely to accept that we were thieves."  
"You think that will help?"  
"Well it's better than her being caught in her parlour with a single man after nightfall. I'll hold a knife to her throat if any one interrupts us; that should convince them. Anyway I need to see her before hand if we are to pull this off, so I have to come too."

He'd grumbled but not too much and she had the feeling that he was glad of her suggestion. Now having seen Mrs Turner's reaction to his appearance in her cottage she understood why, but it made her wonder how well the girl was going to cope with the rest of the plan. No doubt she loved her husband as much as she claimed but there was no denying either that Jack Sparrow still had some hold over her interest. It remained to be seen if that hold was just guilt and gratitude, but at the moment she doubted it.

Behind her matters had not progressed easily and were now coming to a head, Elizabeth was demanding changes to the plan but Jack was adamant,  
"That's it then, two days time. We'll bring the boat to the shore at midnight and meet you at the point we agreed, you bring what you need and the chest. Leave no note or sign of where you are gone."  
Elizabeth started her protests again and Jack looked across to Elanor with a weary resignation,  
"Can you make her see?" was all he said.  
He got up without another word and took her place at the shutter.

Elanor sighed and crossed the room under Elizabeth's cold eyed glare to take his place on the settle,  
"Mrs Turner, no one must know where you have gone. Believe me on this if you can't trust Jack. Yes they will think you are dead, and yes they may think it is because your child was not your husband's child, but that is better than what may happen to you if we leave you here, and to them if we do this any other way."  
She saw the look of angry determination on the other woman's face and sighed again,  
"Enough people have died because of Beckett's greed and your concern for William Turner, we are simply trying to avoid adding to that tally. If your Estrella grieves for you honestly then she is safer than if she is trying to lie about it to those whose business it is to spot a lie at twenty paces. Jack may lie well enough to convince them but I doubt that she will, and I do not need to spell out what that might mean for her do I? Or for your child if we do not get you away and better hidden."  
Elizabeth Turner stared at her for a moment in shock,  
"It is as serious as that? Jack is telling the truth?"  
"Yes, strange though it may seem, he is. He'd no doubt tell you he often does. This is about something more dangerous than treasure Mrs Turner, it is about politics and power, as bad a combination as it is possible to get."

Elizabeth crossed her hands over her belly and stared around the simple room in silence for a moment before rising and crossing to the silent pirate. Jack did not turn, not even when she put her hand on his shoulder.  
"I'm sorry Jack. Two days then, I'll be ready in two days."


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15 Acquaintance made and remade**

Elizabeth Turner studied the small cabin with wide-eyed astonishment. Though the space was compact the neat room looked as if it had been the work of hours for several maids, the shine on the table and other surfaces was mirror bright and there was no dust or dirt or salt to be seen anywhere. The small bunk was a bed fixed to the deck and looked to be comfortable with its dark coverlet and the single, thin, pillow. But the room had an unfamiliar feel to it that she couldn't quite explain, and it was as different to any shipboard accommodation she had previously encountered as her own room in the Governor's house at Port Royale had been.

Even so she crossed from the door and sank down onto the bed's inviting surface with carefully hidden relief, The feel of the bed beneath her was welcome but as unusual as everything else she had seen on this ship, for though the surface of it was firm it was also soft and it seemed to mould itself to her body as she settled herself. She was glad of it, for her legs were warning they had done enough standing and climbing for the day and she'd not let Jack Sparrow see that. Not when he was being so strange and distant, more like the man she had known on the Dauntless than the one she had fought beside six months ago.

So she didn't look at the man hovering in the doorway, and he had made no attempt to follow her into the room, but ran a hand over the bedcovering with a stirring of pleasure, admitting wryly to herself that it had been a long time since she had seen or felt such linen. That realisation stirred another doubt, if this was a pirate ship then its captain was both a successful and a civilised one, another Pirate Lord she would have thought, so why had she not encountered them before? Why had this ship and her crew not answered the song and come to Shipwreck to do battle with Beckett?

Elizabeth knew she would get no answer to that question even if she asked it, for Jack had been most uncommunicative about the nature of the ship and the new confederates he had acquired. Just as he had been evasive on the subject of Barbossa, and the Black Pearl, when she asked. She had reviewed her conversations with him since their reunion at Shipwreck as he had rowed them here for he had been silent much of the time, but nothing offerred any clue as to what he might be about. On reflection she had to admit those conversations had been a depressing mix of her asking and him turning the questions aside. It appeared it would be no different now, and if she were honest with herself it galled her that this time he wasn't even bothering to hide his evasions about his partner and her ship. For the one thing she had managed to get out of Jack was that the ship did indeed come with the lady.

That lady had not come to greet her passenger, and Elizabeth's heart had sunk as she took Jack's offered hand and scrambled inelegantly aboard realising that a passenger was what she was. In the pale light of the coming dawn the ship had been unnerving with its' hint of otherworldliness, and she would have struggled to know what to do to be of use, even if her condition allowed her the opportunity to do anything at all. Which it did not.  
'Does Jack know how to sail this ship?' she found herself wondering as he had hurried her across the improbably pristine decks.

The silence had been threatening, for there was no knowing where the crew was and what their attitude to herself would be, and it seemed that she was not to be given the chance to judge it for the deck was deserted. Someone must sail this ship she reminded herself, even Davy Jones and the Dutchman had needed a crew, and this ship could be no different for all her air of calm, for her masts were tall and fully rigged. Perfect as she was she was real enough and though the canvas was furled there was an air of readiness that was unmistakable. This was no ghost ship even though the wood beneath her feet appeared unusually smooth and clean, as if it had never been to sea. But what manner of ship and crew might be involved she could not guess, and she had been granted little time for speculation anyway for Jack had almost hurried her across those empty decks, then through a hatch and down some brightly polished steps to this cabin. Though he was careful enough of her welfare, going before her and taking her arm without a word as she came down the steps, Elizabeth could not help but think he wanted to prevent her from seeing where she was. That was a thought that further stoked her anxiety and set the child moving in agitated protest.

He had ushered her into this cabin with a charming smile and a polite bow but also with an air of determination that unnerved her still further, and that gave her no room for protest. In that moment she wondered if she had ever known him at all.  
"I usually sleep here when I'm aboard," he had said with a wicked grin, the man she thought she knew reappearing for a moment, "But I've been given me orders, and there's no arguing with the lady when she takes something this much into her head, so this is for your sole use while you remain aboard. No doubts you have…" the fingers of his one hand were wriggled uneasily in the direction of her midriff, "womanly things to be doin,'" He shrugged in apparent incomprehension, "or at least so Elanor says."  
Elizabeth felt the blood flood her cheeks as she was swept by a strange embarrassment, feeling more at a loss than she could ever recall doing in his company. Catching his speculative eye she had the sudden impression that he knew her feelings very well, and she wondered if he really was so ignorant of such 'womanly' things as he suggested. She realised that she doubted it and that thought sent her chin up and set her mouth in a tight line as she turned as if to return above,  
"I would not wish to put you from your bed Captain Sparrow, I am still capable of sleeping on deck, " her voice was cold.  
As she should have expected Jack was unimpressed,  
"No need of that," his smile faded into a mock worried frown, "and besides the lady would not allow it." The faint hint of confused concern was banished and he grinned again, "But no worries, I'll be comfortable enough in Elanor's bunk." His smiled took on a taunting edge and he winked with an exaggerated leer, "Get some practice in… for later."

Before Elizabeth could respond to that piece of provocation he turned quickly and composed his face into something more serious,  
"But the lady herself will come to bid you welcome and no doubts you have lots to say to each other. I'll get back on deck and leave the pair of you to get better acquainted."  
With that he had slid out and disappeared back the way they had come, she heard his boots clatter on the steps a moment later as he headed back to the hatch.

But the lady did not immediately appear and, alone for a moment, Elizabeth remained sitting the bunk as she looked around. There was no window and that the soft, yet bright, light seemed to come from round discs in the bulkheads. The noticing caused another surge of panic as she wondered what it was that she stepped into this time. Nothing that Jack Sparrow was involved in was likely to be straightforward; she should have remembered that. But the truth was that the months without seeing him had softened his image in her mind. Now, as his footsteps faded away, she remembered, for the first time in many months, the duplicity of which he was capable in pursuit of his interests rather than the shame of her killing of him or the magnitude of his generosity on the Dutchman. Whatever it was he had in mind this time it was unlikely to be either safe, or comfortable, and she could only hope that the presence of this strange woman would act as a check upon him.

Not that he would hurt her. Not Jack. Would he? Could she be sure? For all he had shown little of the pirate in his dealing with her so far there could be no denying what he was, and his actions against Beckett had served to remind her that behind the swagger and feckless display lay a man with enough steel to survive for more than a few years in a world of duplicity where friends were few and life was cheap. However much he might wish to deny his lineage he was Teague's son after all, and when he had no other option he could fight and kill well enough. Now, alone in this unfamiliar place, waiting for this unfathomable woman, she wondered if Jack, like her, had been waiting these last months, waiting for his chance of revenge against the woman who sent him to his death. Just as once he had waited to revenge himself upon Barbossa. Suddenly it seemed all too possible that this was the time and place he had chosen to avenge his abandonment to the Kracken, and maybe not just upon her. Perhaps he would see ruining or destroying Will's unborn child as an added bonus, given that Will would have left him dead and stolen his ship.

It wasn't as if he had given any real reason for taking her away from the sanctuary the Keeper had established for her. Other than his story of that first night, of the navy seeking revenge and need to move her and Will's heart somewhere safe, he had been uncharacteristically silent on the subject of his intentions. Even when they were alone, on the row across to the white ship, he had said little at all other than to reassure himself that the chest she gripped so tightly was 'the one' as he put it. It was true that he had responded to her questions readily enough, but only to put them aside. Now that she came to think of it that seemed almost sinister.

Now with her flight behind her and her bridges burned she realised just how little of real substance he had told her since his appearance in her cottage. Perhaps she should have been less willing to follow him again, but the truth was that Jack's effervescent confidence had worked its usual spell, just as she had wanted it to, easing the fears that had plagued her these last months as her belly swelled and she realised that soon she would be unable to defend herself at all. As he had lounged at his ease, consuming cold griddlecakes with a relish she didn't think she had seen him show before, she had been aware of a sudden relief, as if some worry she had not admitted had suddenly been eased. Had that spell of his also blinded her to the threat that Jack himself might pose to her future? As she looked around this little room, realising how completely she had placed herself in his hands, she wondered if that un-named anxiety had played her false and blinded her to those other, and more devious, aspects of Jack's complicated persona. Blinded her in ways that might bring more danger than relief.

But surely Jack would not mean her harm? Would he have brought a woman with him if he had meant her harm? Yet maybe that question of itself showed her delusion, for the lady herself had not seemed motherly, or even sisterly to any degree. In fact Elizabeth had felt no connection to her at all, and she had seemed formidable, even threatening, in a way that Jack never had. But surely some fellow feeling would prevent her from conspiring with Jack in anything that would harm her child? Wouldn't it?

She pulled herself up at the point, berating herself for her fears; whatever else he was Jack Sparrow was no abuser of helpless women or children, at least she had never seen any sign that he was or might be. But he was a smart man with a knack of bending events to his wishes; maybe she was just a part of some bending or other. This woman, too, was unlikely to the monster her anxious mind was busy creating, for there had been nothing to warrant such a slander other than scant sympathy, and that could be explained by the risks she had run in making the visit. If they wanted her dead they could have seen to that back at the cottage, after all Jack was a pirate and his notion of revenge was likely to be a simple one. She suppressed a shudder at the thought, for looking back over their acquaintance she could see that Jack usually prevailed where he exerted himself, and that, unlike herself or Will, he was rarely, if ever, at a loss. When you thought he could be discounted was when Jack Sparrow showed his steel and demonstrated just how dangerous he could be.

But he had never yet hurt her, even when she had deserved his anger. Just as long as she remembered that Jack always had another plan somewhere up his flapping sleeve she would hold her own, of only for her child's sake. If only she could find out what the danger he spoke of really was then she might have some idea of what directions those plans might lead them.

Not for the first time scince their one day she desperately wanted Will at her side.

***

The rumours had come via Governor Thynne and through many convoluted channels before that. Norrington did not ask about the necessity of a web of informants, for the growing diplomatic tensions made the need only too easy to understand, but he had little faith in the strength of any of the links, let alone of the overall of the chain. Men paid for rumour tended to invent it when there was nothing to tell and recent events had been strange enough to make invention easy and separating out the truth night impossible. But for all that it must be taken seriously, matters were becoming desperate and this was the only intelligence they had received in weeks. It might seem too fanciful to be true, but so had James diary and he could no longer doubts the veracity of that, given what he had learned since.

So when the Intrepid docked after another abortive search for the Black Pearl he had sent a message to Hathaway to join him for dinner.

"There are rumours that a man who claims to have fought on the Flying Dutchman is living on the island."  
The Admiral had waited in patience while the servants were still in attendance but once they withdrew he wasted no more time in getting to business.  
"He seems to be keeping his head down and his mouth shut for the most part but then he is technically a deserter and so he would be expected to do so. But he had need of a surgeon recently and in the course of the remedy, whatever it was, he gabbled a lot of nonsense about a fight between Davy Jones and a pirate. Or so those who reported the story say. His description of the pirate would suggest that it was Sparrow and that the fight involved a chest of some sort."

Hathaway sighed and leaned back in his chair,  
"Ah, so at last we have a possible insight into the truth of Sparrow's hold over Jones, he took possession of the chest on the decks of the Dutchman."  
Norrington passed his guest the brandy with a frown,  
"Well perhaps, we know that Beckett used the heart to control Jones so we must assume that Sparrow could use it in the same way. But he must have removed it from the Dutchman if he has kept control over it, and I cannot see how he could have done that if Jones was on his feet."  
"And was he? What is the story of this fight?"  
"Not much that makes sense. He says that the two of them fought on the yards and that the last he saw of it Sparrow still had hold of the chest."  
"And afterwards?"  
"He claims not to know, says he was washed overboard and remembers nothing much until he came to in a hammock on one of Beckett's flotilla. How that should be no one can say and I doubt it could have happened that way without divine intervention. Which is why I am having him brought here and why I wish you to take charge of his questioning."  
The admiral drained his glass and reached for the decanter to refill it,  
"I need not remind you that for the moment all we are acting upon is supposition and with war looming I would like to feel that we were defending something more solid."

Hathaway shifted uneasily,  
"It is that close is it sir?" he asked.  
Admiral Norrington stared down into his wine as he replied,  
"The governor believes so and he is a very canny man. I would not think his reading of the situation is much astray."  
"No more would I. So when can we expect to see this unwilling witness her in Port Royale?"  
"This time tomorrow, he is being brought by land to avoid gossip."  
"A sensible precaution sir. Do you wish me to do this alone or should Mr Groves be allowed to take a part?"  
To Hathaway's surprise the question seemed to cause the admiral some discomfort and for a moment he was silent his lip twisting with some inner conflict, then he sighed,  
"It might be useful but it may also open up new risks." He paused a moment and stared into the candle flame as if looking for an answer in the little brightness, then he sighed again and looked up to meet the captain's interested gaze,  
"The man also claims that towards the end he saw a woman aboard the Black Pearl, a young woman in oriental dress."  
Hathaway was intrigued more by the admiral's unease than by what he had said,  
"Well we know there were at least two female pirates sir, Groves said as much in his first reports."  
Norrington stared at him, clearly worried,  
"That is true," he said his voice as uncertain as his look, "but this man is sure that the young woman he saw on the Pearl's decks was not oriental, that she spoke English and did so with the voice and tone of a gentlewoman." He looked away and back towards the candle flame, "and what, if it should be true, are we to make of that!"

***

"I hope Jack has made you comfortable."  
Elizabeth had been lost in thought of Will and her longing for him when the voice broke the silence, and she came back to the present with a jolt that sent a wave of nausea rippling through her. The woman she had so recently speculated upon in so scurrilous a manner had appeared in the doorway and was looking at her with some amusement, but with no more sympathy than when they had met ashore. Elizabeth had not heard her coming and was caught unaware, wondering how long she had been there. Cursing herself for a distracted fool, she drew a deep breath and rose to meet her host.

She was leaning against the door frame with her arms crossed, very much in command and obviously at ease with that fact. Her jacket was gone, there no weapons were on show and the hair that had been bound up beneath her hat now hung in three plaits that reached nearly to her waist, yet she looked no less strange and forbidding than she had in the candle light, no less knowing too. Elizabeth met deep blue-green eyes and had the sudden certainty that their owner knew most of what she was feeling. Yet she made no move to reassure her guest instead just waved her to resume her seat and remained watching her with a calm detachment from the doorway .

Elizabeth met her look and swallowed a sharp retort, for it occurred to her that the newcomer would not be concerned or swayed by anything that she might have to say. Instead she inclined her head in thanks and sank back down onto the bunk, looking up to meet the lady's eyes was less demeaning than falling at her feet in exhaustion would be, and at the moment Elizabeth knew she was teetering on the brink of doing just that. Even so she met the watching gaze directly, but there was no dislike or disapproval in the look she got back, just a calm, measuring and dispassionate appraisal. Elizabeth found it more intimidating than she cared to admit to herself. Drawing on all the pride and schooling she had received in her father's house she met the look without a flinch, looking over her host in what she hoped was a similar manner, as if judging her role and station, though the truth was Elizabeth had no model to judge her by. If the lady in the doorway was impressed by the response she didn't show it. Instead she moved out of the shadow and further into the room, taking up a position where she could be seen by her guest but without intruding on her to any alarming degree. Only later did Elizabeth realise how much knowledge and experience that consideration betrayed.

For the moment she wasn't thinking much at all for their only precious meeting had been by the light of two tallow candles and so she had not been prepared for the full glory of the woman Jack called Elanor.

Elizabeth stared at her, speechless, not without reason she later consoled herself, for seeing her host for the first time in light rather than shadow was a startling, even bemusing, experience. While she knew herself to be a more than usually pretty girl, and on more than one occasion she had heard herself described as beautiful, she could not deny that to call this woman beautiful was like saying that the sun was bright. Never had she seen a woman so gloriously, wonderfully, perfect; nor one who seemed so remote and unapproachable. This lady would have had the royal courts of Europe at her feet had she moved in such circles, but while her voice suggested origins that might have allowed for that, her demeanour, and her commanding air, spoke against it. Elanor Cavendish, if that was her real name, was no one's mother or wife, and certainly no man's plaything. From first glance it was clear that whatever she was did not include being a rich man's pampered possession or closely guarded treasure. Nor was she the valued consort of a man of influence, not even a king, for her look was too open and unconcerned and there was no hint of calculation or circumspection about her. This woman met the world on equal terms and cared little for what the watcher thought of her, for her aura shouted loudly enough that she didn't have to care. No woman she had ever seen, not even Mistress Chang, exuded such a sense of power, or so effortlessly and unconsciously. It was a power completely separate from her appearance too , though that would be power enough any where on earth, it welled from within her, rooted in an authority that surpassed her physical appearance. Elizabeth knew what it was to have to fight to be counted but it was clear that for this woman such fights had been ended long ago, if indeed there had ever been any. For the first time Elizabeth began to understand why Jack appeared to treat her with such respect. For all she was a lady and beautiful she was most certainly a pirate.

Yet she was a pirate with the face of an angel, a work of art that breathed and spoke. Yet even that was not quite as expected for she was neither passive nor a weakling either. Seeing her now in the bright light of the cabin Elizabeth realised how tall she was, she had not noticed it in the shadows of the cottage but her hostess must have been Jack's height and with wide shoulders and a long neck that made her look larger still, though they also gave her a symmetry and grace that went beyond the usual too. . Her long legs were encased in some odd looking breeches that clung close and showed the graceful curves of limb without discretion, but also displayed the flexing of strong muscle a she moved, and the same looked to be true of her long fingered and shapely hands. It seemed that all that was best in the female form had been combined with the best from the male, and the two halves were in perfect balance and harmony. Yet for all that she was as female as any woman Elizabeth had thought she had ever met

Despite her corporeal solidity and impression of strength there was something ethereal about her too, the upper layers of her hair were silvered, perhaps by the sun but maybe not, while the layers beneath them looked to be gold as that sun it self. The face was as beautiful at second and third look as it had been at the first, more so for the perfection of it was such that it took time for the mind to assimilate the scale of it. But that third look gleaned hints of a maturity too, one that the youthful glow of skin and hair and eyes seemed at the same time to deny, for there was no suggestion of self consciousness or embarrassment at being the object of such an open stare. Elizabeth suppressed a grim smile as she speculated what kind of torment this companion must be for the very physical and flirtatious Jack, somehow she did not think this face would colour in embarrassment very often.

The woman shifted position slightly and apparently judged it time to speak again, though the silence had not lasted many seconds it had been enough for both to be aware of it.  
" I'm Elanor Cavendish Mrs Turner, and, just in case you are wondering, this is my ship and you have nothing to fear while you are aboard."  
She let her eyes drift around the cabin as if making sure that Jack wasn't hiding somewhere,  
"This room is yours for the duration of our voyage. You will find washing and other facilities next door and if there is anything you need that you could not bring with you just say so, I expect we can find most of your needs and wants."  
Elizabeth remembered her school room lessons and inclined her head with all the graciousness she could manage,  
"Thank you. I hope I will not burden you too heavily by my presence."  
Her voice was steady but with a slightly bitter note that Captain Cavendish ignored.  
"Not at all. It must be distressing for you, having to move so completely at such a time. But be reassured, despite what you may be wondering Jack has not mislead you, the move really is necessary if you are to be safe. In the meantime I hope you will be comfortable here, the galley is that way," she pointed back down the passageway, "I will come back later and show you around. However I would prefer it if you would stay below decks, in the present circumstances it will be safer for everyone."

Elanor saw the chagrin flicker in the young woman's face; it wasn't hard to guess her feelings at this moment, but she knew that she couldn't deny the matter in the circumstances. There was not anything that could be done to ease her resentment at the situation so she went on as if she hadn't noticed,  
"We will be underway soon, but in a week or so we will be going ashore again so I suggest that you take this opportunity to rest and recruit your strength. Your belongings, " her eyes flickered for a moment to the chest resting on the bed, "are safe enough here, as are you, so there is no need to worry, at least for a while, though the next bit of this plan may be a little more strenuous and taxing."

"Plan? " Elizabeth couldn't quite supress the note of concern, "Jack said you would be taking me somewhere safer. He mentioned no plan other than that."  
Elanor Cavendish raised her beautify shaped eyebrows in mild reproof,  
"That surprises you? Surely you have known him long enough to know that he talks a lot but says little much of the time?" She gave a twisted smile. "And when he is saying something, that's the time to get really worried."  
Elizabeth's continued frown caused her to sigh,  
" But this time all his deviousness is being deployed on your behalf, you may take my word on that if you can't trust his, and I don't blame you if you can't. We are taking you somewhere safer, and this time we aim to establish you in a manner that will give you some security in the longer term. You don't need me to tell you that will not be easy with all that has happened these last three years. At the present moment we do not know if Beckett really had the authority he claimed, seems unlikely to me knowing what I do of kings and other rulers, but we are best assuming that he did until we are sure. That means we must establish you with an identity that has no links to Port Royale or pirates."  
Elizabeth swallowed hard,  
"But why would anyone be interested in me? My father is dead, Will cannot return for ten years and the pirate fleet has scattered. What interest to them am I now?"

Elanor watched the girl's face closely but could see nothing other than sorrow and confusion there. It seemed that she had no idea of what was happening out in the wider world, nor had she thought about the wider consequences of the events leading up to her current predicament. Not so very surprising really, these last months must have been a rollercoaster of grief and guilt for her, and all that mixed with the natural uncertainties of pregnancy. She would have had little time or inclination to wonder what the repercussions of Beckett's death would be. Maybe it was safer to leave it that way for now, and by the time she did realise she would have a new life, a child to care for and hopefully other matters would have been resolved. But she must be told something, enough to understand the risks in not playing her part, so she drew a deep breath and spoke carefully,  
"There are those who do not like to lose Mrs Turner, men who will always see victory as their natural prerogative and defeat as unjust, how ever fair the contest might have been. Those are often men who consider all resources and advantage as theirs by right, and see all others as puny pawns on their board. From what I hear Cutler Beckett was one of those men, but he was not the only one; in his East India Company there will be others only too willing to seek revenge for what they see as an unnatural event. Just as there will be those who will seek to find the advantage that Beckett thought he could steal and take it for themselves. Then again there are those with something to hide, men who perhaps committed themselves too openly to Beckett's cause in ways that may expose them in the eyes of others, they may seek to hide the trail and silence anyone who might have knowledge of it. Any one of these men might be your enemy Mrs Turner, and that of your husband and child too. Any one of these men might decide to find you and see if they can silence or make use of you."

Elizabeth watched the angelic looking face, seeing the fleeting sadness there and knew that she was hearing the truth, though maybe not the full sum of it. But this much was enough for the moment, and enough to convince her. She swallowed hard and fought for composure, she had seen enough of the world these last three years to know that this woman's assessment was fair, and more than enough to know that it might be hard to hide should anyone of influence really want to find her.  
" I see. I had not thought about it but I can see that you are right." Her throat was tight with fear but her voice was steady enough, "My father would have said much the same I think, had he lived. I have been so preoccupied with my grief and the child that I had not considered that the events might not have run their full course."  
She met the calm, expressionless, eyes of the lady captain and vowed she would not be seen any less in command of herself if she could help it, so she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin,  
" So what is this plan? What will I have to do?"  
The other woman showed neither relief nor sympathy, but she smiled briefly,  
"Nothing very much, or at least nothing that should be too hard or unfamiliar to you. I will bring you a story to read when you have had a chance to rest, read it and learn it, once we set foot on land it will be your past. I hope we have made it close enough to reality for you to find it easy."  
Elizabeth nodded her agreement and the woman smiled again and turned to go.

As she crossed the threshold Elizabeth let curiosity get the better of her, for she was suddenly determined that she would not be a helpless pawn in some game of Jack's, and certainly not of this strangely commanding woman, however awkward it might make matters,  
"And what your part in this? Are you just my transport or do you have another role to play?"  
Captain Cavendish turned back, a somewhat enigmatic look on her face,  
"As I said, you must have another past, one that has no link to Beckett or the events of these last years. We must find a way to secure your prosperity without raising suspicion, and give you a family and a position that protects you from the consequences of your single status for the time it lasts."  
"How do you propose to do that?" Elizabeth demanded, "more to the point how is Jack going to do that, he can hardly pass as respectable!"  
Elanor raised her brows,  
"Well it seems he has passed himself off as respectable, even pious before. I'd not take bets that he can't do it again, though I'll grant you that it might take some adjustments." Her smile reappeared, "Though he and I have yet to agree those. But if I can put up with wearing stays and a skirt for this business Mrs Turner, then Jack Sparrow can tame his hair."  
Elizabeth stared at her,  
"His hair? Skirts?" she stammered.  
"Oh yes, skirts." The smile became sardonic, "It might take you some time to get used to the idea but I am to become your sister. Family you see, as I said."  
Elizabeth remembered Jack's earlier comment and frowned,  
"And Jack? What is he to be?"  
Captain Cavendish shrugged,  
"Well the money has to come from somewhere, and it doesn't seem a good idea that we suggest it is ours, you would become an object of too much interest to single impecunious men if we did, so Jack is to be your brother in law, your very rich brother in law."  
She gave Elizabeth a conspiratorial look,  
"I'm sure he'll enjoy that immensely. "  
She turned away again, and then cast a quick look back over her shoulder, and Elizabeth felt a prickle of shock as the lady winked one suddenly roguish eye,  
"Though maybe not as much as he's hoping to, pretty though he is. Unless I'm in a very good mood that is."

Before Elizabeth could summon up a reply she was gone.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16 Reconsidering**

It had come as something of a shock to discover that the request to stay below had been made a command by the locked hatches.

For a moment Elizabeth had sat down on the bright polished wooden step and surrendered herself to panic. But that was fast replaced by anger. That it was Jack's doing she had no doubt at all, for he had never bothered to hide the fact that he didn't judge her to be much of a sailor, nor that her kingship of the pirates had been his doing and for his purposes not hers. But she had thought the other matters between them to be settled and so she hadn't expected him to make her a prisoner in this manner. As the anger took over she tucked her arms around her knees and recalled with unflattering clarity every selfish, unfair, arbitrary and villainous action she had ever caught him out in; a very satisfying activity until she realised that the number of such instances was far too small for comfort, and more than a little inadequate as a catalogue when compared to her own.

Jack had never offered her violence of any kind and yet she had been prepared to acquiesce when James put him in chains, and to watch him hang, and she had been more than prepared to leave him to a terrible death. She sighed and covered her eyes with her hands as the past came back to taunt her once again.

Could she blame him if he were to see her an enemy, or even to take his revenge? In the quiet of her lonely cottage she had been granted plenty of time to consider her own sins and she had admitted many weeks ago that even her act of saving him had been selfish, for it had been more to do with her guilt and her need to make amends for Will's sake than for any compassion towards the man she had left to die. She had realised too that compassion had not figured highly in her dealings with Jack Sparrow, even though he had saved her life when she had been a stranger and he had no call to do so. She had never stopped to think of what he might need, or what he might feel, and he had known it, and while there could be no judging how surprised or aggrieved his discovery of her motivation it had been clear that it had caused him some discomfort. Even pain perhaps, and surely even one such as Jack could feel that, though it was always hard to judge what, if any, emotion expressed by Captain Sparrow was real and what was paraded for some other purpose.

Once she would have sworn that he was a stranger to either guilt or regret, but then she had seen the tears shed for him and learned of the other side of the man and his legacy to other strangers. The memory of the terrible understanding that had come to her at Tia Dalma's door could still burn her face and twist her stomach. After that she could not be sure she had known him at all, and she could not deny he had been strange since he came back from the locker. What had her killing of him done? She was no longer sure the man she had killed was the same one that they had rescued and while it was true that he had seemed more himself when they had said their goodbyes after the battle it had been clear he had not expected to see her again. Nor had he it seemed, for it had been another man, a stranger, who had brought her from her cottage to this ship. A serious faced man, that stranger, and one who seemed more sober than ever she recalled him being.

Perhaps that should have been her warning.

"Elizabeth! What are you doin' here, or … rather… there?"

***

"So are you satisfied that Captain Sparrow has been honest with you regarding his interest in Mrs Turner?" Ariadne's bland voice managed somehow to convey a hint of scepticism.  
"As sure as can be, at least on his side, I'm not so sure about her."  
"You think she has some continuing interest in him?"  
"I'd not be surprised," Elanor smiled slightly, "the look on her face when I said he was 'pretty' was a picture. The erstwhile Pirate King was shocked, no other word for it, but there was an element of something else too, the sort of expression a child gets when they hear someone talking of something they think of as theirs. Both were quickly followed by what I can only describe as speculation, so I doubt that she had really given the matter much thought before but is now going to."  
"That might be inconvenient, if she were to decide that she wants to stay with him that is."  
"Yes it might be, I'd be sorry to say goodbye to Jack but if Mrs Turner were to attach herself to him I would have to."  
"Do you think that likely?"  
Elanor considered for a moment then shook her head,  
"No, I don't. I think the girl was honest in her love for her husband, and while I might also think that she knew little about the real man she married I doubt that she thinks of it that way. For the moment at least. Once the child is born and she has long days and nights on her own with it then she might come to think differently, which is one reason Jack is concerned about that chest of course. Others might start to look more attractive then, but it won't be yet awhile."

Ariadne seemed to think about that for a moment,  
"And Captain Sparrow, might he do anything to attract her interest?" She said eventually, " If only to protect this chest?"  
Elanor raised her brows in surprise,  
"Do you know I hadn't considered that possibility, but it could enter his calculations if it were to prove impossible to deal with the matter other ways. But then again I can't see Mrs Turner remaining at sea and I certainly can't see Jack giving it up for love in a cottage with a young child. At least not for the moment."  
"But if Mrs Turner were to chose to remain at sea?"  
Elanor's mouth turned down as she thought about that, the shook her head  
"I can't see that happening either. She isn't a sailor as such, not by Jack's standards; after all she ended up at sea by force of necessity not choice. From what Jack told me she was happy enough to return to shore and conventional living once she had been rescued from Barbossa. With her father gone things might be different, but her interest in the sea has never been pressing and most of her life has been much the same as any well-born girl of her time and place. She might have been on the wilful side but she showed no sign of wishing to trail blaze or leave a life of ease and safety until Beckett gave her no choice, and given what has happened to her since I cant see her wishing to raise her child on a pirate ship."  
"Or the pirate city?"  
"That might have been different but it seems that she didn't have the choice. Pirate monarchy appears to be a rather transitory thing, as one would expect. Used when necessary but abandoned as soon as the need is passed, pirates not being men or women that find the idea of someone holding authority over them palatable. One reason they are pirates I suppose."

Ariadne never lost sight of her point and now returned to the crux of the matter,  
"Captain Sparrow might find a liaison with Mrs Turner to his advantage on several counts however, and from what you have said she might find him attractive enough to be tempted. What would be our course of action should that occur?"  
Elanor shrugged again,  
"We leave them to it and disappear. I can't risk having anyone else know too much about us, which is why she must stay below. Jack is careful never to ask too much about you, he knows only too well how dangerous it might be for him, but I don't trust her not show the same restraint, and if she were to see things then she might nag Jack into saying more than he should."  
"Would he tell her?"  
"Probably not by intention, but I'd guess Mrs Turner is quite capable of pushing even the wary Jack to saying something he'd later regret."  
"Might she do that while you are ashore?"  
Elanor laughed,  
"If she had the reason and got the chance maybe she would, so we'll not give her either. She will see as little as we can manage and we will make sure the pair of them are never alone while we are ashore. I dont think he will spend too much time with ehr whilke they are both aboard. Once we leave her settled in a new life I doubt Jack will go back without reason."

"That is why you have agreed to his plan?"  
"One reason yes.... The arrangement means that I can keep an eye on him, and remind him what is at stake at regular intervals, and convention will not allow her much chance to be alone with him."  
"As plan it has its advantages, certainly with regard to keep the two of them from spending too much time alone, but it has its risks too."  
"Risks?"  
"Yes, Captain Sparrow might well seek to take advantage of the situation."  
Elanor stared for a moment then smiled,  
"Oh that's what worrying you is it? You are learning a lot Ariadne, and I'm not sure how, which I am trying not to think about. As for Jack .... well I shall be surprised, and maybe a little annoyed, if he doesn't . But then, again as we have agreed in the past, he's a very controlled man and he knows which side his bread is buttered." She ended cynically.  
Ariadne did not seem to be reassured,  
"But, while I would agree with your assessment of him in most circumstances, I am not convinced that is a complete answer. He doesn't always seem to be so controlled, at least as I have observed him."  
"Well, he knows that you are looking and he might feel the need to keep up the pretence." Elanor said mildly,  
"Perhaps that is true but that does not explain some of his remarks to you, nor the way he watches you on occasions."  
There was a moment of hesitation but when Elanor said nothing Ariadne continued,  
"Are you sure that the current plan for assisting Mrs Turner is feasible, it would not help our situation, nor hers, should it come to blows between you."

Elanor's smile widened, knowing that she might well be offered the provocation.  
"It won't" she reassured," we both know there is too much to lose."  
"Are you sure that he will see it that way?"  
"He will, reluctantly perhaps, but he knows that if he were to threaten me I could blow him out of the water and he's not sure that I wouldn't do it. Though to be fair I don't think the idea of attacking me in the way I assume you mean would ever enter his head, his dealings with Mrs Turner show that. He'd draw his sword against me in the right circumstances I've no doubt of that, but even then there would have to be a better reason than that"  
Ariadne was still unsatisfied,  
"Are you sure of that?"  
"As sure as you can ever be and remember that I've had a lot of experience in such matters." Her smile became a grin, "As for his remarks and the watching well……he has been a sea a long time." The smile faded and she sighed, "but then haven't we all. Just because he is controlled doesn't mean that he is cold blooded, and in some ways I think he might be quite the opposite. The rejuvenating effects of the fountain won't have helped either. But I can not condemn the man for the pressures of lust given that he has behaved with considerable restrai8nt and circumspection up to now.",Her mouth twisted in self mockery, "certainly not when there have been times when it has taken great self control and of all my training to keep my hands off him."  
Ariadne seemed to consider that, reviewing what she knew of human drives and attractions,  
"He is a not unprepossessing man I suppose." She said eventually.  
Elanor gave a shout of laughter,  
"You could put it that way! He scrubs up more than well, as I said he's pretty enough. I tell you it was a near run thing back in that cabin of his, when we were cooking this up. It may only have been my sense of humour that saved me from making a great mistake."  
"You do not seem to be as challenged by the situation as he is."  
"Maybe but then I've had a lot of practice, the navy required its officers to be able to keep their hands to themselves whatever the provocation."  
"Let us hope that you can continue to do so then, if you think that any more intimate contact between you would be a mistake."  
Elanor had grinned at her somewhat baffled confidante,  
"Oh it would, believe me on that, it most certainly would."

***

But as she stood and watched the moon over the sea she wondered if Jack would eventually push the matter, and what she would do if he did.

She had spoken no less than the truth when she told Ariadne that she had learned to keep her hands to herself, even when every hormone pressed a demand for something else. Like all officers of her rank in the navy of her day she had become accustomed early in her career to the quick tightening of her gut when someone she was attracted to stood before her for the first time, and had learned that in time any attraction, how ever strong. could be suborned into a mild fantasy that need never betray itself. The ships of her day had a crew of a thousand men and women and you only made it as an officer if you could do that. Even hinting at an attraction towards a crewman would be viewed as intimidation and result in being disciplined. But Jack came from a less retrained world, a world where the animal imperatives were closer to the surface. If she had doubted the messy realities of his life the smell of the Pearl, and Tortuga, had reminded her. The Black Pearl was a fine ship, one she would be pleased to sail, and Jack loved her above all else, his formal introduction of her showed that, but she had wondered how he had coped without showers and exchange disposal units.

But he was a pirate after all taking his pleasure where he could; knowing that every day might be his last. So he might yet proposition her seriously, with no other options for many miles, and with any outside contacts carrying increasing risks he might well view it as a logical solution for the both of them. What would she do then? She had never bothered to deny to herself that she had felt that surge when she had first met him awake, and close proximity had done little to cool it, but she knew it was a bad idea and that keeping her distance was by far the better policy. But it was pointless to deny that it might yet prove to be difficult to continue to do so. Particularly given his latest scheme. If she hadn't had objective evidence of their pursuit of the heart then she might even have thought he had dreamed it up for nefarious purposes. As it was she could not dispute that it made logical sense, but nor could she deny that it put a strong temptation before both of them. It remained to be seen how they would deal with that.

As she turned towards the helm she smiled and admitted that, while it would still be unwise, she wouldn't mind too much if it proved to be a test too far.

***

"Elizabeth! What are you doin' here, or … rather… there?"

Taken up in her own thoughts and fears she had not heard the scrape of the catch, nor been aware of the hatch opening, but as she turned her face upwards she realised that it had opened and now the face of the man she had spent so much wondering on was staring down on her.

He was looking quite confused, which was not uncommon, and at the same time more than a little stern, which was.  
"Thinking" she replied with all the dignity that she could summon,  
Jack bridled at that,  
"Well that's a strange place to be doin' it. Would have thought the cabin or the galley more comfortable places for any profound or extended cogitations. And judging by your scowl they are both."  
Elizabeth forgot her thoughts of a moment before and drew a deep breath at the effrontery of the wretch then quickly composed her face into a more dignified expression,  
"Perhaps, and the deck would have been better than either, but then I hadn't realised I was prisoner. " She glared up at him, "What is the purpose of this charade Jack? Does your companion know how you view me?"  
Jack looked to heaven and sighed loudly before returning her glare with wide and innocent eyes,  
"Were the lady that locked the doors," he said with exaggerated patience.  
Elizabeth felt the colour flood her cheeks,  
"Oh! Well….no doubt at your request Captain Sparrow."  
Jack flicked a hand,  
"No doin' of mine Elizabeth, the lady is the captain of this here vessel, and such commands are hers."

Her second 'oh' was drowned out by the scrape of boots as Jack climbed passed her and sat on the stair below. He took her hand in his, his eyes still wide and guileless, a sure sign he's up to something. His voice was kind however, as if talking to a frightened child, a tone that made her want to slap him.  
"Now what is this all about?" he said. "I've told you we mean you no harm, she's told you we mean you no harm, so why all this worrying? Have I ever given you any cause to fear my actions? Eh?"  
"You put Will on the Dutchman." She scowled at him, wondering why it should be that crime she used against him.

It was effective though for it brought him up short and his gentle smile flickered and dimmed,  
"Ah," he said uncertainly, and then he patted her hand and his smile returned,  
"Tis true that I did, but I knew that Bootstrap were there and would see him right, and Jones could not kill him out of hand, was not in his power to do so given that Will had not died, nor come near to dyin', at sea."  
His tone was reasonableness itself.  
Elizabeth felt anger take hold of her again,  
"You didn't know that!"  
He seemed taken aback,  
"Did I not? Though I'd made a deal with Jones before and it were Bootstrap that brought me the black spot? Do you not think I might have known what Jones could do and could not?"  
Now it was her turn to be taken aback, after all she wasn't really sure just how much Jack had known about Jones,  
"Well… maybe that is so." She hedged, "But you sent him all the same and you couldn't have been sure."  
For a moment Jack's usually expressive face became a blank mask and when he spoke his voice was a flat as his expression,  
"Perhaps, or maybe I thought Jones more easily bent than he proved to be. Either way were naught I could so about it when he wouldn't give him back, what was done was done and I made of it what I could and trusted Will to do no less."  
Jack shrugged and waved a hand in no particular direction,  
" He made his bargain Elizabeth, and he was not a boy any longer that I should coddle him."

That doubled her anger for some reason she couldn't explain and memory came to her aid again,  
"Coddle him, when did you ever do that! You didn't expect him to get away Jack, you were surprised when he turned up on the island with the key."  
For a moment Jack's eyes narrowed as if he had difficulty in recalling that day not so long before he died. Given later events perhaps that was really the case,  
"Was I?" For a moment he sounded uncertain, "Maybe you're right at that, or maybe I didn't expect it so soon, or maybe I was just marking time to see me way forward."  
The blank expression vanished and he was all wide-eyed concern again,  
"But that is in the past, have you not got enough to concern you in the present, things being as they are….." this time his hand fluttered in the direction of the mound of her belly, "Have you not got enough to keep you occupied without inventin' more things to be concerned about? "

Before she could draw breath to answer him he patted her hand again and got to his feet,  
"We need to be ready to go ashore in a day or so and you need to look respectable, I didn't allow for your …..condition, Mrs Turner so you will need to ply yer needle with some vim if we are to be ready in time."  
"You lock me below decks and expect me to sew!" she said in indignation as he drew her to her feet and offered her a supporting arm.  
He gave another wriggling shrug,  
"No choice for it, what you had with you will not suffice, a dress or two will be enough, none would expect you to have more than that this close to your time, but those you must have and Elanor is no seamstress."  
He led her down the corridor as he spoke and at the cabin door he turned away with a smile,  
"I doubt you'd thank me for my help in the matter so you must make shift for yourself." His voice took on an edge she couldn't quite recognise,  
"No doubt you've spent enough time with dressmakers and the like to be bale to cobble something together. After all every lady can sew a seam, can she not?"

Elizabeth stared at him for a moment, suddenly visited by one of those flashes of curiosity, not the first in the time since he had pulled her back to life from drowning, that prompted her to wonder about Jack's background; one of those moments when she wondered at his apparent education and the sophistication and exactness of his speech when he wasn't being the pirate. A strange man Jack, a pirate who could pass himself off both as an officer and cleric, in other words as a gentleman, with enough success to achieve whatever ends he had been pursuing at the time. Who was he really? Did anyone know? Word was that Teague was his father, and he was a strange one too, but where had he come from and was that even his name?

For the first time in their acquaintance she looked at Jack with un-blinkered eyes, seeing what Captain Cavendish might see. For the lady had been quite immodestly open about her own evaluation of Jack, and it had been both shocking and fascinating at the same time. A revelation in fact, for until that moment she hadn't fully understood what James had been implying that day on the deck of the Pearl; but the look in the lady's eye as she had said 'pretty though he is' had left no room for misunderstanding and Elizabeth had been shocked that she had been so shocked by the openness of that look. But she had understood it as the girl she has once been might not have done. Now, from the safety of her marriage and pregnancy, she could look openly and appraisingly at the man rather than the pirate and what she saw took her by surprise.

She had always thought of Jack as being grubby, dirty even. On the journey to Singapore she had come to understand that personal hygiene was not always possible on a long sea voyage, where what water that there was had to be kept for drinking and the fire below, the only source of warm water, might have to be put out at a moments notice; but she had not considered beyond that. She had not considered that maybe the Jack of the neatly braided and trimmed beard and the elaborate hair might not be grubby by choice. In those first days of their acquaintance he had stank as badly as his crew, but she had also learned that when you travelled with not so much a change of clothes that could not always be avoided either. Maybe he had less choice in the matter of personal hygiene than her less experienced self had appreciated and maybe she had the answer in front of her now, for the pirate was conspicuously clean. She let her eyes wander over him noting the changes, the marks of pitch and lamp black were gone from his hands and nails and there was no shadow of grime on any part of him that she could see.

His hair in particular showed the difference, for the thick, nearly waist length, mass of it no longer looked stiff with salt and tar, now it looked soft and supple, the reddish lights in the deep brown shining through richly in the bright light of the corridor. The beard, neatly braided as ever, showed the same gloss and the though his dark eyes were still lined in kohl they were clear. She suppressed the urge to sniff, but she was sure that if she did she would small soap rather than sweat and rum.

But the something different went beyond that new cleanliness, and not just the clean scarf or unmarked shirt and breeches. It took her a moment to realise that the red mark on his jaw was gone, and few more to see that he had put on a little weight and that the muscle of his shoulders and chest was more obvious. He seemed less weary too, much more the ebullient character of their first meeting. She felt a sudden surprise as she realised how weary Jack had been when they pulled him back from the locker, yet more when she realised the shadow of it had already marked him when they had first met again in Totuga. Then there had been a shadow in his eyes as he had sparred with her on the dockside that had nothing to do with the time of day, and thinking back now she could recall a tension in his shoulders that had not been there in the days of seeking the Pearl. Now both were gone and the weight of the year spent dodging Jones and battling Beckett, and his dying, had somehow washed away. She realised with a jolt that Jack was more of James's age than her fathers, and that had he been wealthy, or even respectable, he would still be of an age to be eligible for someone's virgin daughter, a most uncomfortable thought.

Most worrying of all was that for the first time she understood why James had drawn the conclusion he had, why the compass had pointed to Jack when she hadn't expected it to, and why Will might indeed have thought that she loved the pirate rather than himself. For looking at him with more knowing eyes she could now see that Jack was indeed, as the lady captain had said, really very…..pretty. Except that pretty was not the word at all somehow, for all his mincing mannerisms and flirting with the world Jack Sparrow was not at all unmanly, and not at all safe. Memory surged and she was suddenly rendered breathless by the risks she had run with him, and the liberties she had taken. From their first meeting she had known that he wanted her and yet she had trusted to his restraint, his sense of honour; strange when she had known that he was a pirate and not at all honourable. Why then had she set him on a par, in terms of safety and manners, with James?

Or had she? Had James seen something in her she had refused to see, had not allowed herself to see. Had some part of her had always known ……what he was, and that part wanted it badly enough to risk allowing him to take it. Or, what was it he had said on the deck of the Pearl, 'persuade me,' had she been hoping that he would persuade her? Maybe the compass needle had been suggesting that was the case …

Elizabeth shook the thought off, she had loved Will, and though the hero of the stories she had grown up with was always going to seem exciting he was also bound to be an old man to her when compared to her glowing and youthful swain. Her thoughts of physical love had all been directed at Will, she was convinced of it, and though she had kissed Jack goodbye it had been with the weight of what she was planning to do like a lead weight on her heart. That weight had wiped any excitement and pleasure from the kiss, for she was not so depraved or wanton then that she could enjoy it when she knew it for the betrayal that it was. Was she?

But now she realised that Jack was far from being old, he was very….comely, there was no denying it, However long he might have lived in the world, he was vigorous and clever and somehow beautiful in his way, and it was likely that there were a string of woman left mourning his going somewhere in the world. Looking at him now she was taken aback by her own blindness, for her own recent knowledge told her that he would offer much in the way of pleasure, if one was of the mind to enjoy it. Few ladies of easy virtue would send him away, even if his purse was light, and not many more respectable ladies would turn him away either if the circumstances were right. A shudder ran through her as she realised, for the first time, that Jack Sparrow would not be accustomed to being told no by objects of his desire, and had he not been the man he was then her corpse, her ravished corpse, would probably be buried in the sad of that spit of land she had set fire to.

"What is it Elizabeth? Why are you looking at me so intent all of a sudden. Not been out of yer sight so long you need to stare at me that way."  
He was frowning at her and she wondered just how long she had been staring,  
"You're clean!" she said the first words that came into her head, "and you look… different somehow. What has happened to you Jack?"  
He wriggled uncomfortably and his expression seemed almost fearful.  
"Different? In what way different?" the words were sharp.  
"I don't know. You look…. less… world weary I suppose."  
"Ah, " he sounded relieved, "Well had a chance to sleep more easily with both Jones and Beckett gone. Other than that.. well…. " he smirked at her, "as you've see this ship has some great advantages regarding personal hygiene ." His expression became stern again, "It is easy for the rich to stay clean luv, but a lot less easy for those of us who have to draw our own water."  
"As I have discovered," she replied dryly.  
"Indeed." He looked suddenly uncomfortable, "But it will be easier from now on."

He turned away suddenly.  
"But I've business to be about and so have you, you have three days to get your wardrobe in order. Elanor will bring you a couple of gowns to let out the seams and make what other changes you might need.  
He looked back at her and smiled brightly,  
"At least you'll not be falling down in a swoon because your stays are too tight."

Before she could reply he sauntered back the way they had come.


	17. Chapter 17

  
**Chapter 17 Mr Norrington**** prepares **

"How long he been like this then?"  
Anamaria was staring down at Barbossa with a frown between her brows and with one hand on her pistol while the other played with the wooden cross around her neck.

Gibbs sighed, for he'd hoped she would not ask, knowing from bitter experience that turning Anamaria's questions aside was not much easier than turning away Captain Cavendish's. A quick look at her face told him was no point in denying it for the girl had a fixed and mulish look that said that she was not of a mind to let the matter go now it was broached.  
"No sayin' for sure," he replied slowly. " know that he became somewhat strange during the business with Beckett, and the crew say he got stranger still after he upped and left Jack on the dock side at Tortuga,"  
He crossed his fingers and hoped that would be enough, he had no intention of mentioning Tia Dalma and her black arts to Anamaria if he could help it. Jack had warned him most sternly about telling her too much. Keeping matters on an even keel this long had been hard enough, and had taken some quick and wearying thinking on his part, but Jack had known the question would come and had steered him towards what he should say when they did before he had sailed off on the white ship to find Miss Elizabeth. So when the question had been asked he had told her that Jack had been mistaken when he thought he had killed Barbossa. As Jack had explained on the deck that last evening, one man back from the dead was enough, and tolerable if Jack were the man, two though, well that might make the girl wonder at the wisdom of being involved. Gibbs had shuddered at the thought, for there was no denying it could have unfortunate repercussions with the captain not being here to reassure her. After all Anamaria was of a piratey bent and he'd no wish to have to come to blows with her.

As if to underline that thought Anamaria gave a small snort,  
"Always was too soft for his own good was Jack Sparrow. Should have killed him on the locker shore, that or left him there."  
"Always was too soft for his own good was Jack Sparrow. Should have killed him on the locker shore, that or left him there."  
Gibbs sighed again, privately he was of the same mind these days but there wasn't much he could safely say about it,  
"Aye well, that's as maybe, but Jack weren't hisself and anyway the others would not have allowed it I'm thinking, not given that the song had been sung and all the pirate lords were called to arms so to speak. Including Barbossa. He had the chart showin' the way back too, though turned out we had to rely on Jack to work out how to use it."  
The woman beside him smiled sardonically,  
"No fool, Jack Sparrow, not even when just back from the dead."  
Despite her indulgent tone her hands tightened around the cross at her neck as she said it. Gibb noticed and nodded in sympathy,  
"Still gives me the chills to think about where we were and to recall how he looked on those sands, a'knowin' that he were dead even as he stood in front of us. Strange it were, and so were he. Only those who knew him would have seen that something were wrong, but it were wrong, very wrong."

Her smile died and she shot him a hard eyed glance,  
"Is it right now? Is he himself again? Not that's much to be saying I know. But is he…." she hesitated,  
"Truly alive?" Gibbs finished for her, "By my reckonin' yes he is, but I can't deny that something has changed in him too, whether for good or not I can't say. He would have shot Barbossa out of hand on the deck of the Pearl after we returned, but the powder were wet. Maybe he knew that, maybe he didn't, can't rightly say which be the case, but it weren't like him at all; there were something missing in him then, he were less Jack somehow. He were .. odd… both harder and softer at the same time. Can't quite put my finger on it but he just weren't Jack."  
"No great loss there then, " Anamaria said tartly, then anxiety entered her face and voice. "Is he now? Jack again?"

Gibbs thought about that for a moment, he couldn't blame her for asking not when he had had his own doubts on the matter,  
"Aye, leastways I think so, though would be foolish to say that bein' mutined again, betrayed and then eaten ain't had some effect. Can't expect a man to come through that unchanged to my way o'thinkin' But the man who came back from the Dutchman that last day…. well he were the one I knew in the old days, before his debt to Jones fell due and made him desperate."  
"Jack Sparrow desperate?" Anamaria mocked, "not got the wit to be desperate. Always got hope has Jack, even when there be no reason for it."  
Gibbs pursed his lips,  
"Might think so but….well you didn't see him those weeks," he shook his head at the memory. "desperate he were then right enough, no other way for it'. Clear as day it were, though none of us knew the reason . Never seen him drink so deeply nor for so long, or to so little purpose and with so little pleasure, he never put ashore once, never visited the ladies. Weren't interested in pirating or wenching, or any other dammed thing but finding a way out of the fate that stalked him. He knew Jones and what he had become, and what was waitin' for him if he didn't find a way to best the devil. Desperate he were right enough, and he must have been nigh on mad with it to go into that hellish place."  
He shuddered, reaching for his flask and taking a fortifying draught. At times those hours on deck in the fog still came back to haunt him, the sound of the bell sending shivers of doom across the sea, and them not knowing who it were that the bell tolled for.

"Is it true then, that he went in ……there?" Anamaria's voice had dropped to near a whisper and she was wide eyed with horror at the thought of it.  
Natural enough when all those who sailed under pirate colours, and many who didn't, knew the risks of being caught in those waters. The prison was near a legend and the stories of it were legion, most of them fed by the drunken tale telling of the guards and skivvies who manned the place. If even some of what they had to say was true then the noose was a mercy compared to what would happen to a man in there. No one came out alive, and it was said that none died easy there. Nothing the navy or his majesty's governor would do came close to it. She didn't doubt the stories, nor that the horrors were real enough, for she'd seen the coffins once, streaming out from the cliffs, the cheap wood splintered to show the torment of the corpses they contained. The idea of sailing

"Is it true then, that he went in ……there?"  
Anamaria's voice had dropped to near a whisper and she was wide eyed with horror at the thought of it; natural enough when all those who sailed under pirate colours, and many who didn't, knew the risks of being caught in those waters. Gibbs nodded, not surprised to see the colour draining from her face.

The prison was near a legend, a bad one, and the stories of it were legion. Most of them fed by the drunken tale telling of the guards and skivvies who manned the place and if even some of what they had to say was true then the noose was a mercy compared to what would happen to a man in there. No one came out of there alive, and it was said that none died easy. Nothing the navy or his majesty's governor would do came close to it. Anamaria didn't doubt the horrors were real enough for she'd seen the coffins once, and that once had been enough for it was a sight that those who saw it never forgot. They'd strayed too close in a mist and only the tolling of the bell had warned them to turn aside in time to avoid impaling themselves on the rocks, but they had come close enough to see what the bell tolled for. Streaming out from the cliffs they had been, dark shadows on a dead looking sea, the cheap wood splintered by the rocks and surf to show the torment of the corpses they contained.

The idea of sailing near the place, let alone with the intention to go in, was enough to send her heart racing. That Jack had been in there was a thought almost too hurtful to be borne. The sights of such a place would be hell on earth, the stench of terror and death always in the air, that and the screams; she had seen men in pain too many times to count and she could imagine the screams even as she stood in this quiet cabin and stared down at Barbossa's frozen face. She shivered, Jack was not an unimaginative man and being there, all the time knowing what they would do to him if they caught him, seeing what they might do to him….. Gibbs was right, he must have been desperate indeed to even consider it.

Gibbs saw her look and, in a rare moment of solidarity with this bad luck at sea, he held the flask out to her, watching in sympathy as she took a deep swallow. He nodded,  
"Aye it's true. Days he were in there too, days. Never asked what happened to him and never will, but it must have been mortal bad because he were well spooked when he came back aboard. Jack's done some mad and dangerous things and he's never been what you might call …..normal, but I've never seen him look like he did then. Seein' ghosts could have had nothing on it. Things had not gone to plan he said but that he had prevailed, knew then that he must have had to make some desperate shift to get out in one piece. Well, was sure he did for he came out in a coffin with a corpse."  
He shook his head as the memories stirred restlessly in the unaccustomed light of day,  
"Never realised what an omen that were at the time. But it were one right enough and maybe he knew it."

Anamaria nodded sombrely, swallowed more rum and then handed back the flask,  
"Never a fool Jack Sparrow," she said, "so he might have done at that. But never one to give up neither."  
"Aye well, it were the first time I've seen him at a loss for many a year." Gibbs was sombre as he recalled how it had been back then and where it had led them, "Like a wild bird trapped in a cage he were, all wild eyes and helpless flappin'. Until Will turned up that were, he calmed down then, seemed to see his way."  
He said no more for Jack had instructed that he should nothing of the island or what had happened there.

She shrugged,  
"Turner? Well he saved Jack's hide the first time, true enough. But I'd be surprised if he knew what Jack were about or what was at stake."  
Gibbs nodded,  
"Aye, Jack was not about to share that, though Will he were not honest about his own motivations either. Neither trusted the other to understand I reckon, if they had then maybe matters would have been different. Jack might have seen things from a different angle if he had known Beckett was behind it."

His companion tilted her head and pursed her lips; when finally she spoke her words were harsh, but measured,  
"Can't see what Jack could have done different, not as things were. Getting the key himself would be nigh impossible, for Jones would have known what he wanted immediately, and once he stepped aboard the Dutchman he would have been lost. Turner might get off the Dutchman alive but Jack never would. As for the rest? Well… what would have been the point of asking? He's a pirate, got nothing that honest man Turner wanted or counted, and the blacksmith loved the girl and would have sacrificed Jack for her without thought.

She flicked a hand as if dismissing the pair of lovers,  
" Jack explaining his need would have made no difference. A pirate's need against Turner's lady love's? To a man like him there would be no contest, even if he did save Jack from the noose. No, if the compass would save her life then they must risk Jack losing his, would seem an unfortunate necessity to Turner. Jack would know that to be the case, so what could he do but what he did?"  
Gibbs, never one to wonder much at other people's thought or feelings, took a moment to absorb that idea, and realised that she was right. Jack had no doubt worked all this out before suggesting that Will find the key. He gave Anamaria an approving, but wary, look, realising that the girl had her own share of Jack like deviousness.  
"That maybe so," he said thoughtfully, " certainly Will came to the locker for the Pearl not for Jack." He scratched his chin at a problem that had vexed him before, "Got very bitter about Jack Will did, never was sure why."

That earned him a disbelieving look,  
"The girl, Miss Swan, she were the cause of that you lummox! Had a fancy for Jack I'd wager, just like nigh on every other woman he ever met. She were bad news and Jack knew it, but she had a hankering for him and I expect Turner knew it too."  
Gibbs stared at her, astonished,  
"Miss Elizabeth? For Jack? But she killed him!"  
Anamaria gave him a grim but knowing smile,  
"So she did, but that would be to save Turner's arse I'd guess. Oh she loved the lad right enough, not sayin' that she didn't," she wagged a finger at him, "and loved him only as a wayward, spoilt, rich man's daughter who never had to do a day's work or go hungry, can. But that don't mean she didn't fancy Jack in her bed. Too proper to do aught about it maybe but I'd bet it didn't stop her wantin'"  
Her smile widened and took on a quality that Gibbs couldn't quite read,  
"There are things in a man that call to a woman in ways that go beyond love or reason, and Jack Sparrow he has more than his fair share of whatever they might be. Rapscallion pirate as he is."  
As Gibbs drew breath to ask what she meant but she flicked a hand in Barbossa's direction and went on as if the subject of Jack's attractions was closed,  
"But this one, what do we do with him?"

Gibbs floundered for a moment then decided the best thing he could do was answer, conversations with Anamaria could get nearly as confusing as talking with Jack or Captain Cavendish,  
"Jack says he knows what we need to free him and when he comes back to the Pearl we set off to find it."  
"When he has secured Miss Swan." There was a note of derision in her voice.  
"When he has Mrs Turner safe." Gibbs replied with a hint of reprimand.  
Anamaria looked at him with bird bright eyes,

"More to it than that Mr Gibbs. Jack 's not fool enough to risk his neck for this one," she jerked a finger in the direction of the bed, "there's something else at stake other than Barbossa's soul, you mark my words."  
"That's as maybe, but I'd not know."  
Anamaria gave another of those little knowing smiles,  
"No, but she does, I'll be bound. Jack Sparrow better watch himself there, that one is not anything even he is accustomed to, and her face is only half her trouble."  
"Mrs Turner?" Gibbs was now truly lost.  
"No, fool, she's of no consequence to Jack any more. That woman, Captain Cavendish, she's something different though, mark my words, there be something mortally strange about her, something ……portentous. I hope Jack is on his guard, for if she is involved he will need to be."

With that she turned and left the cabin, leaving him staring helplessly at the silent Barbossa with a sudden feeling of dread.

****

"Four horses you say sir?"  
The livery man looked at the customer in front of him with carefully masked curiosity; it would not do to annoy someone ready to spend so freely but it was odd enough to have strangers hiring the coach, and being willing to shell out for four horses was almost unheard of. It was only right that he should wonder if the stranger had the gold to pay for his wants and he was an unusual looking cove, not like those usually seen here about. But the man seemed unconcerned by either the look or the questions.

The free spending stranger was lean and nimble looking with tanned skin, neatly trimmed goatee beard and very dark eyes; not a farmer he'd guess by his build, nor a merchant, so one of those East India men, or maybe a sailor or a soldier out of uniform. No wig though, for he wore his own hair un-powdered and braided into a thick queue that reached well below his neck, more importantly perhaps the sword at his hip sat easily and looked as if it was for something other than decoration. His coat was of a fine, dark cloth, well cut and embroidered and laced in a manner not often seen in these parts, and the fall of cream coloured lace on his stock was deep and generous. The generous cut cloak and buckskins were as might be expected of a man travelling in so bad tempered a spring, and long boots with short tops were both more comfortable and practical than the more fashionable buckled shoes. Each item was of fine quality, good workmanship and barely worn, but all had a hint of flamboyance that spoke of resources to spare. The cut of that coat was more extravagant than was usually seen for sure and he'd take money that it had not been sewed by any local tailor, nor even one on this coast where most people 's Sunday best was just a neater version of their workaday wear.

Even so it was the stranger's manner that sealed the matter, the way he looked at you, and his way of talking, they were not that of a servant or a tradesman and his air of confident unconcern told the tale of a man who rarely had to give way to others. Only the hint of an almost martial bearing, and the sit of that sword, suggested he might have more to do in life than to spend money. Soldier then, or a privateer, maybe the latter for he looked to be wealthy enough, though there were few of them seen this far north. Whatever else he was he looked to be a man who could fend for himself, and one who might make a bad enemy.  
"I did."  
The voice was uncommon too, clipped but with the hint of an accent he couldn't place, cultured and not unfriendly, but for all that his tone was easy it was still marked with the authority and certainty of one used to issuing commands. The liveryman risked a little more curiosity as the stranger counted out some coin,  
"Goin' far are you sir?"  
That earned him a long, cool, look and for a moment he thought he had gone too far, but the man decided to answer,  
"Far enough, and my sister in law is with child, so I'd rather make the journey as quickly as possible."

He watched his customer pull a purse from his pocket, noting the flash of gold and gems on the long fingers, even though the hands themselves looked neither soft nor pampered, in fact they were strong hands that were used to doing things. He was struck with a sudden certainty that those hands could cause a lot of mayhem if their owner was of a mind to do so, so he kept his voice quiet and respectful.  
"Ah sir, I see. Then I dare say you will want the best horses, and I'm sorry to say that means a day's wait for one of the best pair is not expected back until this evening."  
The stranger frowned for a moment then nodded,  
"No matter, I'll take a pair for today and we will spend the night at the inn here, it will give her time to compose herself before we make the last stage."  
As the horses owner took the coins he risked another question,  
"Stayin long will you be sir? "  
As his customer's brows descended into a frown he hurried to explain himself,  
"When will I need to send a groom to collect the coach?"  
The frown hovered for a moment then smoothed away,  
"Not so long, you'll have your horses back soon enough. Once my sister in law is settled we'll be away. My wife is concerned that she be amongst company and close to a good midwife when her time comes, given that we cannot remain until her child is born. 'Tis her first and the matter has fallen out…. a trifle unfortunately."  
"Ah, 'tis hard for a lass to be on her own at such a time."  
"It is, but her husband is at sea and I must be about other business. Being newly married myself I am not of a mind to leave my wife behind."  
He nodded in sympathy, he would have felt the same himself,  
"I can see that you would not be sir, but as you say it is unfortunate. Be easy though for the town is well provided with company for the lady, she will soon find other ladies in a similar situation, and the midwives are well spoken of."

Jack smiled slightly and added another coin to the small pile,  
"So I have been told, if we must leave her on this coast, as time dictates we must, then this seems the best place for her. Should William, her husband that is, get the opportunity to visit it will be convenient for him too."  
Hopefully the man would not ask how convenient. He didn't, just nodded wisely and so Jack left it at that, confident that he had said enough for the moment and sure that his words would have been repeated across the whole of the little port by the time the horses were back for their feed. Satisfied with that he moved on to his next objective.

"Speaking of convenience I have need of a young woman of good character," he smiled blandly suppressing the thought of what Elanor would respond to those words.  
The groom just looked puzzled and Jack slid another coin across the table.  
"My wife's maid chose marriage over travel just before we left. While my lady is happy enough for me to lace her gown at sea, us being not an old married couple as you might say, she would not be so content with the situation in a more civilised surrounding. So a maid she must have, her not being accustomed to fending for herself in the matter. A local lass will do for the moment, provided she is clean and of good character, kill two birds so to speak, for she might be happy to stay on with my sister in law when we leave, and my wife will not leave her sister alone and unattended to."

The liveryman sent up a silent prayer of thanks, for this was certainly his lucky day,  
"Well sir I may be able to help you there. My eldest girl is recently returned from the household of a lady who succumbed to a child bed fever this winter, her husband has returned to his parent's house and she is need of another position. She is as clean and neat and as willing to learn as any you will find sir. Give her a chance and you'd not regret it. She would be most please to stay with your wife's sister when you leave sir, for a place with such as yourself for a lively young household so close to home would be a boon to both her and her mother."  
The customer nodded,  
"Send her along to the inn and I'll speak with her, though the ladies will decide. My wife will be here shortly and we will see."  
"That I will sir, and thank you for the opportunity, she is a good and willing girl there is little opportunity for her to make her way in so small a community, she was sorely grieved when her you mistress died so young. She had hoped to stay on as a nursery maid but it was not to be."  
"Life can be harsh, its true." the other man said sombrely  
"That it can, sir, that it can. Do you want the pair harnessed up now?"  
"Aye, the ladies should be ashore by mid morning and I'd not keep them waiting, I'll take the trap to meet them myself "

Jack slid another coin across the table and slipped his purse back into his pocket. Fortune had been on his side it seemed, for he had no desire for a coachman to drive  
him to the rendezvous and had wondered how best to get out of it without attracting comment.  
"Make sure that the coach and four are at the inn by nine of the clock tomorrow morning, for I want to be in town by midday. I will be back for the trap within the hour and no need for a coachman until tomorrow for I can handle a horse well enough. My father believed that a man should be able to drive his own horses, and shoe them too come to that, so it's no hardship."  
For a moment the liveryman wondered who and what this man's father had been, for there was no denying that there was something singular about him. He banished the thought quickly for he had no reason to think ill of the stranger, quite the contrary given the weight of the coins in his hand. Whatever else he was the man seemed to be both generous and easy mannered, so he had no qualms in pursuing his daughter's advancement,  
"That I will, and who should Rebecca, that's my girl sir, who should she ask for?"

A smile drifted across the other man's face, a slightly lopsided smile as if he was thinking of something amusing but slightly wicked,  
"Norrington. Tell her to ask for Mr Norrington."  
The smile faded and he was suddenly all brisk and business like again, though the liveryman was glad of his next words given that smile for they convinced him of the man's respectability,  
" I'll make sure that the landlady knows that I am expecting her and shows her to a private room, rest easy that I'll not keep her kicking her heels in the public tap where she might attract unwelcome attentions."  
Then the stranger turned abruptly in a swirl of good, dark cloth and strode out through the battered door and into the watery daylight.

***

In tap room a fire was burning brightly, for the spring had been cold and wet and though Lent had begun a week or more ago there was still a hint of sleet about the rain.

Jack brushed the dusting of ice from hat as he set it on the chair and laid the cloak beside it. On the table a decanter of best French brandy reflected back the flames and called to him to warm his insides as well as his hands, he succumbed without resistance wishing for no more than a second or two for rum. Flicking his coat skirst aside he sank into the highbacked chair placed beside the hearthand settled his heels on the fender. With a smile he refilled his glass as more rain spattered against the window, reminding him that he had better be on time to collect Elanor and Elizabeth from the inlet; that pair would certainly find a way to make life very uncomfortable for him if he left them waiting for long in such unfriendly weather.

With a sigh he leant back in the chair and watched the flames, it was a while since he been this far north, though there had been a time when he had sailed these waters regularly and to great profit. Maybe he would return when the business with Barbossa was settled, as it must be for it had been made very clear to him what might happen if it was not, and that was not a comforting thought at all!

Not the only thing that must be settled soon either.

With another sigh he set his glass upon the floor and pulled the bundle at his feet onto his lap. He had taken great pains with this, and though he had been sure enough at the time suddenly he was not so sure. The knot in the twine securing the sacking was easily undone, and with care he slide the generous folds of coarse cloth down a little from the contents, smiling slightly as the fire light warmed the colour of the wood that revealed.

Gently he ran his fingers over the grain of the wood and then across the iron of the catches and the lock. It looked old, certainly more than the day or so of its existence, the polish scuffed and grimed in places as it should be. Jack smiled his satisfaction as he ran his hand of the curved top one more time, there was no cause for worry here for the man had done well and the chest was perfect in everyway. A little sand, a drop or two of water and the job would be done. Elizabeth would never know the difference.

Carefully he wrapped the chest again and reached down to pick up his glass, draining the remaining contents at a gulp. 'Elanor is right', he thought, gripping the chest gently and staring into the fire, 'it is best this way, we will keep it safer than she can, and it's not as if it robs them of anything.'

On that comforting thought he rose and tucked the chest under his arm then turned and l;eft the room, running lightly up the stairs. Five minutes later heran down again, snatched his hat and cloak and headed back to the stables and the waiting trap.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18 Exchanges **

"She were no oriental is aall I be sayin', but I caan't be tellin' you moren thaaat."

The speech pattern was that of a poorly educated man, almost a yokel, and the shabby clothes said much the same, but for all of that the bright eyes, set straight under wire like brows, were alert and watchful. Hathaway had noted as much before the man had opened his gap toothed mouth. After a week with nothing stronger than small ale to drink the prisoner was a sober as he probably had been in a while and he was no fool, despite what he may wish to appear. Jack Sparrow was not the only man to have discovered that pretending to be so could sometimes be to ones' advantage.

Hathaway made a mental note to arrange some other drink for him if they didn't get answers before the end of the day.

He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms across his plain, dark coat, the gold braid had seemed a bad idea given that the prisoner was a deserter in their Lordship's eyes and knew it.  
"So you say, but I'd wager a young lass of any persuasion would have been noticed more than that."  
The man gave a snort and shook his head,  
"That's as maybe, but I were too busy stayin' alive I tell ye. I only saw her for a moment, and I only noticed her at all b'cause I took a notion that I'd seen her on the pirate when she came alongside o' us."  
He spat onto the straw covered the floor,  
"Beckett! Curse him for a fool and a coward, I lost good friends when that ship went down."

There was silence for a moment, the only sounds those of the wharf, for Admiral Norrington had not risked taking his prisoner to the fort. That prisoner shot Hathaway a furtive look as if deciding how much more to say, though he must have known that matters were beyond being repaired by his silence. Whatever it was that he thought that he did or didn't see in Hathaway's face reassured him and he continued,  
"Had I known what heathin' doins' were planned I'd not have joined up with Beckett's men so readily, however many Commodores and Admirals he had on his pay. I'm a godly man, and there were times when I feared for me soul." He sent a sly look across the table, "Not the only one neither I'd say."  
He seemed disappointed when that brought no response from the navy man and shook his head sadly as he continued.  
"Beckett, now, he had none to fear for I'd say, but from the little I saw of the Admiral I weren't the only one worried of the devil. Looked right sick with it toward the end he did."

Hathway noted that for future consideration but let it pass for the moment,  
"Perhaps, but the matter of your soul is for your confessor, I'm interested in the pirates."

The prisoner shrugged,  
"The one in question I'd know again sir, and I'd not doubt he were that Jack Sparrow as was said. He had brass neck enough for it to be no one else."  
Hathaway thought about that for a moment before replying,  
"But Jones did not name him?"  
The man on the other side of the battered table scratched dirty hair with a blackened finger nail as if considering the matter,  
"Well now you mention it…… maybe it were that he did sir, and I sort of heard without knowin'. Were I the middle of the storm though and I'd other things on me mind."  
"They fought on the yards you said?"  
That brought another scratch of the tousled head,  
"Aye, though how Sparrow got up there I've no knowledge. He be a rare sailor so the stories say but it would have taken a magician to climb so far aloft in that hell. But get up there he did for I saw him and Jones at sword play; outlined in the lightening they were, and how they stayed aloft like that I could not say. It were weird to see it I tell you."  
"And Sparrow came down again with the chest?"  
"That he did. Well that's to say I saw him and it on the deck, still fighting Jones he were and the chest were lyin' discarded. What happened to it next I've no knowin'."

There was silence again as both men considered where they went from here,  
"And the girl?" Hathaway prompted eventually.  
The prisoner drew a deep breath as if thinking about the matter.  
"By the time Jones challenged her, which were when I saw her, I had problems enough of my own, for he and his cursed crew were well out of control and a danger to friend as well as well as enemy."  
Hathaway was fairly sure that the man's problem had been staying out of the way and under cover, but he knew there was no point in following that line if he wanted answers.  
"I doubt Jones recognised the difference," he said mildly, "but you are sure that she was English?"  
That brought a most definite nod,  
"Oh that I am, were no mistaking it sir. Very proper in her way of talking too, no runaway maid I'd be thinkin' 'less she were some posh ladies maid, and why would one of them be with pirates?"  
"Why would any woman? But you didn't hear her name?"  
"No introductions being made then, 'cept at the end of a blade."  
Exchanging a look with Groves, silent on the far side of the room, and recalling some of the tales he had told of that last day and the storm that came from nowhere, he smiled a weary smile,  
"Yes I expect that was the case."

Hathaway fell silent as considered what he had learned already, and what more he was likely to learn, while the man on the other side of the table watched him with wary eyes. Only when the prisoner began to fidget did he speak again.  
"You saw no one else with the chest?"  
"No sir, but as was tellin' ye, I must have gone over the side before the Dutchman went down or I'd not be here sayin' anything. She were listing wildly at one point, and the waves were like naught I'd ever seen sir, so would not be suprisin' if I did nor if I were not the only one."  
"Your meaning?" Hathway was betrayed into sharpness and cursed himself, but it seemed to have no effects on the man opposite him,  
"Well sir, far as I can tell no one has mentioned no female corpse bein' found, so either the lass was sucked down into that hole in the ocean, or she got off some other way."  
"Perhaps." He was non committal again, this man was far too sharp for his liking. "But the last you saw of the chest it was on the deck and Sparrow and Jones were fighting over it?"  
"That's about the sum of it sir. As for the lass, well she is most like dead is my way o' thinking, for Jones was at her like a mad man and he were a strong bugger and she would have had little chances agin' him. Even if she escaped….. well… Mercer was gone by then and Jones crew were well out of control. No where she could have run to. Nor no one either. If she didn't die on the decks she would have done so in the sea"

Hathaway decided he needed some time to think, for he had a nagging feeling that something remained to be asked,  
"Very well." he looked towards the man on guard at the door, "return him to the cell and find him some refreshments."  
He watched the man opposite, now rising to his feet with a watchful expression,  
"Maybe when you are fed and watered your memory will improve a little."  
The watchful look became resigned as the man was pulled around and hustled out.

***

"Well, it seems to be going well."  
Jack took the opportunity of their passing in the dance to whisper in her ear, though his smile as he did so would have convinced all the ladies present that the words were something more marital, even intimate.

The people watching them generally agreed that they were a most handsome and well matched couple, and no one here had any doubts about the happiness of the union between Mr and Mrs Norrington. A certainty bolstered by Elanor's preference for his company and her refusal to dance with anyone other than her 'husband', and Jack's very attentive behaviour to his wife and polite and proper behaviour when in the company of any other lady.

Only they knew that she didn't trust herself to dance with anyone else, or not to betray her ignorance of this world, and that he was avoiding too much conversation as a precaution against awkward questions. It had been all Elanor could do to keep a straight face when she had overheard one elderly lady comment to a mother of a young daughter that she would be fortunate if her girl made so happy and felicitous a marriage. Jack, too, had told her, with great delight, how a very young lady had asked Elizabeth if she was as happy in her marriage as her sister within his hearing.

But then Jack assumed that, all evidence to the contrary aside, he would be a perfect husband if he chose to be, and said as much, frequently. Every night in fact.

Elanor had taken great pleasure in responding that she would be 'a bloody awful' wife. A somewhat spirited, and rather physical, discussion about whether he could change her mind on that had followed, not the first nor the last of his assaults upon her resolve to be 'unnecessarily unfriendly' as he put it. Fortunately, in Elanor's view at least, this was interrupted by Rebecca, their new and sharp eyed maid. A very useful addition to the household to her mind, and one that she was sure Jack had regretted on many occasions.

"For the moment," she murmured in response before the dance separated them.  
She let her eyes wander over to where Elizabeth sat at the side of the room with another young mother to be. The conversation seemed to hold her attention completely and her smile showed no strain or uncertainty, Mrs Turner was finally finding her way back into society, remembering old interests and habits. Watching her Elanor felt that matters might yet fall out well for the girl, or at least as well as could be hoped, for her cheeks had a bloom again and she smiled more often. More importantly perhaps old patterns of behaviour and interests were returning and she was becoming who she had been raised to be once again. That, as much as Jack's conniving, would help to shield her from being identified as a pirate in the future.

Elizabeth Turner wasn't quite into safe waters yet but she gave no one any reason to doubt her story of herself, which given the attention Elanor and Jack had lavished on it was a cause for satisfaction. Any anxiety she might show was more than accounted for by the stage of her pregnancy and the absence of her husband. Nothing in fact that any one present would think unusual, for she was not the only woman here to face her first birth without either husband or mother, and she had met with nothing but sympathy, so far at least. No, to all outward appearances there was nothing to mark out Elizabeth Turner from any young woman of her age and situation; as Jack had said, it was going well.

Only when Elizabeth looked up and across the room towards Jack did a hint of something jarring, something that might betray her, enter her expression. It was momentary though and she soon turned back to her companion and became absorbed in their conversation once again.  
'Babies and midwives,' Elanor thought as she watched young Mrs Turner rest a caressing hand upon her silk swathed belly, 'with a side order of layettes and christenings perhaps.'  
No one else had apparently noticed anything amiss, and there was no time for her to wonder what that other look had signified for the last note of the violin was fading away and the couples must leave the floor to make room for the next set. Elanor dipped a wary curtsey to the man opposite, carefully avoiding his admiring eye as she did so. She really did not want anyone else angling for a place beside her at supper and it was getting difficult to avoid them; she had already finessed three such attempts this evening.

But this time her partner was not granted the chance for Jack was at her side as she rose, taking her hand and drawing her away from the man, who had just opened his mouth to offer her a cool drink and a walk on the terrace, with a nod and a slight smile. With a similar smile she inclined her head in her would-be companion's direction and let Jack draw her hand through the crook of his arm and lead her slowly towards the supper table, both of them casually greeting one or two people as they passed. They had been here a week now and in so small a community that was long enough to be known to those who mattered for their purposes, certainly when their wealth was evident. They had been careful to say neither too much or too little, about themselves, preferring an air of well bred reserve, but stories about their past and present plans they let fall as little drops of information whenever conversation made it possible, and Jack was adept at instigating conversations that lead there sooner or later. Elanor could only wonder what he would have done had people been less naturally curious, or bored with each other.

But they were curious, or bored, for such interesting new acquaintances must be rare here and though neither she nor her 'husband' appeared to be attracting unexpected attentions they drew a lot of expected ones. Appearances suggested they were fully approved of; she was seen as a new wife and happy in her lot, while Jack was seen as a fortunate man, rich and suitably attached to his beautiful lady. It caused the pair of them some considerable amusement and Elizabeth not a small amount of surprise. Not least about Jack.

Jack, far too often it came back to Jack. Or rather Jonathon as he had become again for their visit. Sometimes she wondered what memories that name brought him but he said nothing about it. Elanor sent him a sideways glance while his attention was elsewhere; he was no beginner at such games that much was clear, and so far he had not put a foot wrong, at least to her inexperienced eye. Elizabeth had expressed her astonishment at his ability to find his feet in such company with so little effort several times, Elanor wondered how her blacksmith would have managed, and if Ms Swann had given any thought to that at all.

Elanor was less surprised by Jack's accomplishments, but the novelty of him seeing behave so properly, and with apparent ease, was still powerful. Behave he did too; he was a graceful dancer, an amusing conversationalist and surprisingly well informed on a whole range of things that a pirate could have little need of knowing. It caused her to wonder what he had been in the years before he gained the brand, for at some point in his life he had been respectable and more, she was now sure of it. Education or not a pirate's son would never have been raised with this level of social accomplishment; for one thing he would have had no opportunity to develop such skills outside of the drawing room, and it seemed unlikely that this time and place ran to charm schools. Not even life as servant would have prepared him this well. Since their arrival here Mr Gibbs story of Jack's past had come to seem less fanciful.

But the worry that he might decide not to behave was only partly banished; particularly as he was living with all the constraints and demands of a married man but with none of the perks, at least as he would see them. Lying beside her at night, forbidden to touch, well to touch very much, but unable to avoid the heat or smell of her, he must wonder if his good behaviour was strictly necessary. She certainly did. Even a town this size, and one with religious roots, would have a brothel tucked away somewhere. More than one of the gentlemen currently engaged in the dance could no doubt furnish him with its direction! Nor would he be short of opportunity in more affluent and respectable circles should his resolve fail. Looking around the room she saw more than one female eye turned in his direction and sighed silently, no he wouldn't have to look far, or to a brothel, for assistance should he decide to go off the rails. Certainly more than one of the married ladies here would help him out, and most of the maids at the inn. That he had shown no sign of doing so didn't reassure her, not in the circumstances, and she wondered how long his virtuous pose could hold up in the face of her unavailability and the innocent, well largely innocent, encouragement to shed it that he was receiving on all sides. Jack was too much a man of the world not to be able to read their reactions easily and with great exactitude.

Not that she could blame them, for even in sober dress, dark red with a shell pink waistcoat this evening, and with his hair neatly tied, he was a man who drew eyes. Somehow in shedding the pirate and putting on the mask of a gentleman he had managed to achieve a poise and elegance in his pretence that put most of the men here at a disadvantage. His aura of being widely travelled, knowledgeable and, yes it had to be said, rich, completed a picture that was most attractive to the ladies of their new acquaintance, and he had been showered with attention from the moment they had first appeared in public. Yet so far his resolve seemed to have held. Maybe she would have to think about rewarding that before they left.......

As they settled themselves on a magnificent, and very ugly, sofa by the window, she replied quietly,  
"Yes, another day or two and I think we can be on our way. I can't see that we can do much more for her, she's about as well established here as she is likely to be without her husband to hold her hand. Once the child is born she will move into a new circle and forge her own way ahead, she is no fool and she knows she needs to be careful to protect her offspring. The longer we stay the bigger the risk of us, me, making a mistake or the Chaser being seen."  
Jack nodded as he took her fan and plied before her face, his own voice was low,  
"Agreed. The man of law I've retained will come to the inn tomorrow. Once the money is in place there is little reason for us to stay," he turned a caressing smile upon her, "interesting though the experience is."  
Elanor bent to arrange her wide silk skirts to hide her smile, anyone watching might wonder at the nature of it,  
"True."  
She straightened and reclaimed her fan as Jack took a glass of wine from a passing manservant, spreading it as if to cool her face,  
"Have you made the necessary exchange?" she murmured behind this silk and feather protection.  
Jack nodded as he sipped slowly at the deep red contents of his glass.  
"That I have, several days ago. If she has noticed anything she hasn't tackled me with it. Has she said anything to you?"  
"No, and that's another reason for us to be gone. She hasn't asked for it yet but she will; she knows it must be kept out of sight but even so she will eventually want to reassure herself of its' safety."  
"Is she like to realise?"  
"Who can say? It isn't what she will expect and as long as she doesn't open it, and that seems unlikely given the expected contents, I don't think she will see through it."  
She frowned slightly as she remembered that evening before she and Elizabeth had left her ship,  
"But here was only so much I could risk doing. I can't leave her with an artefact that would involve as much danger as the one we are trying to protect her from."  
"No, I'd not want you to do that, "Jack muttered over the rim of his glass, "but will it be enough?"  
"I hope so. But if she finds out then there is no saying what she will do if you are still here to do it to. Once we are gone then there will be nothing she can do even if she does discover."

He turned another smile on her,  
"Again, agreed. But we must not seem to rush for all our sakes, and there is the matter of the property still to be resolved. I'll sign the deed tomorrow, when that is done she will have a roof over her head and an income sufficient for her needs. The we can give some thought to our departure."  
Jack leaned his head towards hers, his eyes coming back to meet hers and another of those loving looking smiles curling his lips, with his free hand he reached up and tucked a stray wisp of her hair back from her face,  
"A year or two, maybe three, and she will have enough of a past to be able to move on with little fear of discovery," He said quietly into her ear before he drew back,  
Elanor watched him as he curled her hair around a finger, her lookbehind the [rotection of the fan wasa warning. Sometimes he pushed it to the limit, and she had wondered several time in the last few days how many husbands of this time paraded their affection to their spouse in this way. Her history wasn't good enough to know.  
"You have something in mind?" she asked.  
Jack let his hand drop and turned his attention back to his wine, his eyes returning to the room around them,  
"Mmmm mmm, I've arranged to purchase a small estate some miles down the coast, a little warmer climate and a little larger a community, better when the child starts growing and wants some schooling."  
"Maybe," Elanor inclined her head and plied the fan again, her own eyes drifting back to where Elizabeth still sat with her new found friend, "it will certainly help hide the source of her funds."  
"That it will, or it will provided she is careful and lives no too far outside her obvious means."  
That stirred another frown,  
"Will she mind that? Her father must have been a rich man."  
"Ah, but she was willing to marry a blacksmith remember, so she cannot be over nice in her needs now can she?"

There was a hint of something in his voice that made her look at him sharply, but all she could see in his face was a slightly sardonic amusement, so she let it pass.  
"Will it be enough do you think?" she said softly.  
"To hide her? Can't be sure, but it is the best we can do, at least until her time comes, she is too noticeable and vulnerable to do anything more at the moment. While everyone assumes she is dead it will be enough, but if someone should find out that she isn't then we might need to make further shifts."  
"Is that likely?"  
"No, but then nor was most of the happenings of these last few years. Who can say if Calypso is still playing games with us all and what form her game will take if she is."  
Jack set his empty glass on the tray of a passing manservant and rose to his feet before bowing in front of her, he extended his hand to take hers, the fall of lace from his cuff bands blinding white against the tanned skin of his wrist. He raised his voice a little,  
"What does my lady say to one more dance before we wend our weary way home?"

***

The prisoner had not cast them a backward glance but the scrape of scuffed shoes on the stone floor had died away completely before Hathaway turned to Groves, still silent in the corner.  
"Does any of that ring true to you Mr Groves?"  
There was a faint sigh then Groves nodded,  
"Yes, though the Endeavour stayed away while the Pearl and the Dutchman fought it out, much to her officers displeasure I will add sir, it was clear that the battle was both fierce and confused. That he does not recall it fully does not seem so unlikely, though I doubt he was in the forefront of the fighting."  
"I'd agree with that estimation Mr Groves. The rest?"

Groves considered for a moment,  
"I am not sure. His report of Sparrow's actions is maybe not so unlike as it would seem,… fighting Jones on a yard would be in keeping with what I have seen of him, for the man is both audacious and apparently without fear. You know that he fired himself off the decks of Beckett's ship by way of a canon, sir? So his physical ability to do such a thing cannot be doubted."  
Hathaway gave a small smile,  
"True."  
Groves seemed relieved, and hurried on,  
"That he would want the chest, having seen how Beckett used it, also seems like him, though I am less sure he would have used in a similar fashion. He did not seem interested in power enough to be so concerned. To use it to secure his own freedom, that, however, I could believe."

"Agreed." Hathaway hesitated for only a heart beat, "and the woman?"  
Groves nibbled at his lip,  
"With regards to that I am less sure sir. That he saw a woman I can accept, everyone knows that there are some women so depraved or desperate that they seek out the life of a pirate, but that she were English seems less likely. That she was of good birth and manners even less so. It would take dire straits indeed to force a gently born woman into the company of pirates, but to fight for them….. that, sir, I cannot accept. Where would a gently born woman learn to handle a sword? Why would she wish to?"  
Hathaway watched him for a moment, knowing there was no point in avoiding the matter, Groves might not think it now but in time, only a little time, he would.  
"Perhaps for the same reasons that, as I understand it, Miss Swann did," he said slowly.  
Groves face went white, the skin under his eyes showing bruised with some emotion that Hathaway could not be sure of,  
"That was a most singular circumstance sir, and one that grieved us all. But I cannot see any other English lady being driven to such measures."  
"Maybe not, but can we be sure?"  
That brought another sigh and a slump of the younger man's thin shoulders,  
"No I suppose not, but it seems most unlikely."  
"I agree." He replied gently.

He watched silently as shock stiffened Groves face into and widened his eyes in a mask of disbelief..  
"You think it might have been her? Miss Swann sir? That she survived Sao Feng and was there on the Dutchman?"  
The captain leant back in his chair, a shaft of sun venturing through the barred window picking out the dust on the dark coat and the golden lights in his wigless and un-powdered hair  
"Is that more unlikely than that another such lady was present?" He said softly, "I never met her of course but she seems to have been a proud and spirited young woman from all reports. If she had suffered the fate you suspect for her at the pirate's hands, and somehow survived it, what would she do? Would she have tried to make her way back to her father? Or would she have decided to let him assume her death rather than pain him further? Could any father live with the guilt of allowing that to happen to his daughter? Swann seems to have been a fond parent."

Groves swallowed hard,  
"There is much in what you say, sir. I have no doubt that Turner would have wedded her all the same, it was much to his advantage after all and his care for her seemed genuine enough. But could she have lived with everyone knowing what had happened? Of that I am less sure. Her father was careful to delay her wedding long enough to silence the gossips when Barbossa took her, but the stories of the curse quieted much of the speculation and very few knew about her time alone with Sparrow, her father and the Commodore saw to that. But there would have been no making it good this time. She would have had no choice but to leave the Caribbean, and as you say, she would not have borne the stigma, and the effect on her father and his position, well."  
He was silent for a moment then he cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders,  
"But even had she survived I do not think she would have taken to arms in that manner, how would she when nothing in her life could ever have fitted her for it."

Hathaway smiled slightly,  
"Except survival, it should never be underestimated what people will do in pursuit of that Groves."  
The other man closed his eyes briefly,  
"I do not, sir, I know where it can lead a person only too well." He swallowed hard, "I would give anything to find Miss Swann alive, but I cannot think that she was the woman this man talks of. Even if by some miracle she survived the pirate, and it was her he saw, it seems inescapable that she is dead now. She, whoever she may have been, died on the Dutchman. Let it rest there."  
"Very true Groves. But as for the pirate we need to know far more if we are to find the heart or whatever else it is that Sparrow holds over the captain of the Flying Dutchman. Perhaps our friend will be able to tell us more when food and drink have loosened his tongue. See to it that his drink is a little stronger than water will you?"  
The young officer nodded, his face still pale and haggard, and hurried out.

Hathaway watched the door for a moment before he got to his feet to follow,  
"Perhaps she is dead, perhaps not," he muttered to himself, "nothing in this business is what is to be expected after all. As for leaving it… would that we had a choice in the matter."  
He stretched his shoulders, he had been sitting in this dingy hole longer than he had expected to do.  
"It seems there may be more to this than I first thought. The real puzzle is what do we do about it?"  
He strode out and headed for his appointment with the Admiral.

***


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19 Time to go

Elizabeth Turner watched the sun rise, and not for the first time in this last year. Grief, anger and guilt had all disturbed her sleep in their turn these last months, and by the time they had burned out physical discomfort had been waiting to step into their place. Her pregnancy was beginning to make most positions uncomfortable after a while, even lying down, and the aches and pains that kept her wakeful now also left her easy prey to the shadows of the others.

She sighed as she watched the night cloud trail lazy finger across the moon, there had been more lonely, wakeful dawns than she had ever imagined possible that bright day in Port Royale; the day when she had watched Will run the risk of execution for a quiet conscience, and decided that she could not bear to be married to anyone else. Then it had seemed that days would always be that bright and nights, even waking ones, would never be lonely. Now she had come to dread these treacherous hours before dawn, the slow and creeping hours that held the power to break a person's hope, to make the past unbearable and the future unthinkable. A future that was so different from the one she had imagined when she had made her choice.

Then she had looked forward to the thought of wedding lace and her father's wistful smile as he gave her away, onwards to the expectation of a home and children, of love and companionship. While she had known her unconventional choice would bring difficulties she had never doubted her father's power to smooth them away, or that he would be there to do it. She had never doubted her father's power at all, nor James's, any more than she had doubted the rightness of it. When Jack had dived over that wall, free to return to his Pearl, and James had smiled and given him half a day's start, the blurring of that rightness by the prospect of hanging Jack for the sin of saving her had been resolved. From that moment until her wedding day she had never doubted the course her life would follow.

Even the nightmare of Barbossa and his ghostly crew had dimmed once she was home again, and the memory of his corpse sprawled on the pile of gold always there to reassure when the horrors of what had been, and what might have been, crept out of the darkness. Jack she had never feared, not even when he put that chain around her neck, for she was not a fool and when she had looked into his face that first day on the dockside she had seen no malice, nor hatred, only humour and tolerance, and a determination to be gone.

Gone, as he would be again, and all too soon.

Just as Will was gone.

That was the bad dream now, and one that didn't melt in the sun. The nightmare of being alone, her father dead and her husband lost to the sea and the duty that bought his continued living. A strange kind of living it had to be admitted, only half mortal but still of this world, gone but not yet passed on. But he was there, somewhere, knowing that was nearly enough, and when he came back it would be to a real home, and to a family who did not live by the canon and cutlass. He would come back, and to the life he would have wanted, or at least as far as she could manage it.

She leaned her head against the window pane and sighed, if she had still been in her cottage she would have sought out the chest from under her bed at this point. Many night hours she sat cradling it, pressing her ear against the ancient wood to hear the faint beat of his heart, reminding herself that somewhere he was awake and thinking of her, not aware that there was anyone else who might want his thoughts and love. But there was no chest to hold tonight for Jack had protested vehemently at the risk of keeping it under her bed and had taken it to hide amongst his luggage. She understood his reasons but at that moment she would have done almost anything to feel that faint beat beneath her cheek, it might be a long time before she could feel it again.

The baby stirred, perhaps disturbed by her sadness, and she hushed it with a pat and a reassuring word. Will's child would be nine years old before they met, nine years of stories and promises instead of a father's arms and protection. But that was better than them never meeting at all, far better than the alternative, for that would still have left her alone but without any purpose in her life at all. At least this way her child had a future, and therefore so did she; a life given by three people, his mother and father who loved each other, and a pirate who loved no one at all but who had given up more than she could maybe imagine to make that love possible. If she lived to be a hundred she would never know why Jack had done that, and he would never tell. For he could have no excuse that wouldn't lay bare the fact that, at the bottom of it, he was a good man; and in his eyes that would mean admitting a weakness. She knew now that Jack would never do that, and that she could never ask him to. He had given up his freedom to let them have a chance, embraced a life of fear so that they a chance to live and love, one day of it if nothing else. How could she ask him for more than that?

Yet at this moment she did want to ask him for more. She wanted him to stay for just a little longer, to go on playing the game of being the respectable family man for a few weeks more, and not to leave her to bring Will's child into the world alone. She knew the risks he was running well enough but in this last two days she had had to bite her lip on several occasions to stop the desperate words, 'don't go!'

Maybe it would have been easier to ask if Elanor had been more sympathetic, more approachable or concerned, but she was not. She played the part of the beautiful sister well enough in public but that was as far as it went, there was no sense of connection between the two of them at all, no feeling of shared interests or experience. It was as if they came from different worlds. Elanor Cavendish was as beautiful as any painting or statue and it seemed to her 'sister' that she showed about as much feeling and even less passion! There were times when Elizabeth could believe that if she touched the woman she would find that her skin was marble.

Yet she and Jack seemed to understand each other, and no one could accuse Jack of being passionless. If his co-conspirator showed little empathy with the object of the charade …well…. it must be granted that she had put herself to considerable effort on the behalf of someone she didn't know and showed no sign of approving of. Elizabeth had to admit that she looked the part tricked out in silks and lace, but this life, these manners were not hers, that had much been clear on the ship. She had not dropped the mask since the moment they had stepped into that first inn and so it was impossible to tell how she truly felt about her current role, it might well irk her, even disgust her, but she played it with apparent dedication. Just like Jack.

Not that any of their new acquaintance would believe that lack of womanly compassion, for on the face of it she was near perfect, a beautiful and gracious woman, and while every other woman here envied her they also approved of her. She might seem remote on closer knowing but to the people of this town her considerable reserve would appear nothing more than the manifestation of a good upbringing and wifely duty. Only the lady herself, and possibly Jack, knew just how different the truth might be. Though Elizabeth knew little more of the truth than the people around them she had seen enough to be sure that at the heart of Elanor Cavendish was something very unusual indeed, and perhaps more than a little dangerous.

Just like Jack in fact.

Elizabeth nibbled at her lip and wondered about this woman who seemed so much in Jack Sparrow's confidence, not for the first time and with the usual struggle to put her own undeniable resentment to one side. That she was not a clear headed judge of the lady had to be owned, for it had soon become clear that Jack had spoken the truth when he said that she was captain aboard her own ship, and after their second encounter she had lost any doubts about who had locked the doors that kept her below decks. The vexing question then, of course, was why had she locked them?

Staring up at the indigo sky she had to admit that the thought still intrigued her, for the only reason she could imagine was that the lady had something to hide. Something so important that her visitor had to be shut away from it, but if so it was something that Jack knew about, something that he might even be a party to. In which case whatever the secret was it was probably valuable. She sighed and wrapped the coverlet closer around her, the thought was maddening.

Yet somehow she never challenged Elanor about it. It had not taken her experience of pirates to realise that the lady did not let anyone decide her actions, and certainly not Jack. Elanor Cavendish was not like any woman Elizabeth had encountered before, and not even Mistress Chang had carried the same air of unconcerned confidence. But most intriguing of all was that when she had looked into the woman's eyes that first evening she had seen the same distance that had been in Jack's when she had looked up into his face after his return to the Pearl to face the Kraken.

She would never forget that look, even given what came afterwards, for that was the moment she had realised she seeing not 'a wobbly legged pirate' but the man from the stories, and that the man from the stories was not to be taken lightly. That moment had divided them forever, for the Jack she had thought she had known had disappeared in the whiff of gun shot, being replaced by something she knew she had little chance of understanding. She had always consoled herself with the belief that without that look she would never have left him to die. Odd then that she should see the same look in this woman's eyes and know it for what it was.

But there had been a strange air of familiarity from their first encounter in the cottage. She had not understood that either and in hours after being taken aboard the white ship she had given much thought to who the newcomer reminder her of. Yet the likeness had eluded her until she had woken that first night aboard, and in the middle of dream, to the shocking realisation that the person she most called to mind, despite the angelic face and very female body, was the late James Norrington. Afterwards she wondered why it had taken her so long to see if, even her sparring with Jack had similar overtones.

James, another ghost that walked her dreams; she smiled a little as she wondered how he would have reacted to Jack's theft of his name. Not that he could have objected to how it was being used. These past weeks she had needed to stare hard at him to be sure that she could still see the swaggering pirate beneath the knowledgeable and elegantly mannered gentleman of means. She had to admit his performance could only enhance the standing of his borrowed name. To now at that was. But Jack was still Jack for all that, and it could only be a matter of time before he slipped. Elizabeth had eventually conquered the impulse to count the spoons when they left the table but the worry remained, the gold to fund this was coming from somewhere and it could not be long before it occurred to him to recoup some of his losses from amongst the jewels and plate that surrounded him. She wondered if Elanor felt the same nervousness, if that was the reason for her watchfulness, for she had a feeling that the lady captain was more uncertain about the matter than it first seemed. Jack's games were not for the cautious after all.

Even so she couldn't help wishing they would not go, nor stop the wondering about how that mismatch pair of conspirators managed their roles during the private hours of darkness. The inn had not rooms enough for husband and wife to have separate sleeping chambers, and, though they had not betrayed concern, or any other feeling, at the situation, the idea of the two of them alone raised more speculation in her own mind than Elizabeth was comfortable with.

Perhaps her 'sister' did not enjoy such proximity? Maybe that was the cause of her unease, why she showed no inclination to dissuade Jack from leaving, why she seemed to be encouraging him to leave as soon as possible? Yet Elizabeth would have sworn that whatever happened between the two of them when the door was shut on the world Elanor Cavendish would be more than mistress of the situation.

That lady had slipped in her precautions only the once, that night before Jack left for shore. Discovering the hatches to the deck unlocked Elizabeth had seized the advantage without thought and hurried up the stairs towards the deck before the oversight could be realised and rectified. She had opened the hatch cautiously, not sure what she would see, or do should they see her, but determined to be a prisoner no longer. But the voices on the hot air had been close and while her jailors had been taken up with each other and what they were doing, too preoccupied to notice it, their proximity forced her to stay where she was and pull the door closed. A sliver of space was all she had dared maintain to watch them through, but her curiosity was powerful and she had settled herself on the top step to listen to their conversation.

Elanor had been side on to the door, her perfect profile gilded by the golden red sun of a late afternoon. Jack had been in front of her, sitting on a hatch cover with his hands on his knees, his head tilted back and a look of faint unease upon his face. Laid out beside him was something that looked to be a mirror, and a line of brightly coloured beads and charms, while draped across his knees was a cloth that looked very like his scarf and a length of dark coloured ribbon. As Elizabeth watched Elanor dropped a thin leather cord to join the scarf and buried her long fingers in the dark mass of Jack's hair,  
"Well what ever else you might be short of you don't lack hair." Her voice sounded wryly amused.  
Jack inclined his head slightly further back and grinned saucily up at her,  
"I'm Captain Jack Sparrow! Don't lack anything else either luv, my word on it."  
Elanor smiled slightly, the shadows cast by the dropping sun hiding the other detail of her expression,  
"Pirate." The word was a taunt, "your word can't be taken to count for much."

He reached up quickly and caught one of her wrists, stilling a hand that was engaged in un-plaiting the thick braid that hung down the back of his head, while his smile stayed in place but took on a more challenging edge,  
"More than willin' to demonstrate the truth of it, darlin', as I have told you on many an occasion." His voice was a purr.  
Elanor shook his hand off with little apparent effort and dropped her own to his shoulders,  
"So you have, but I can't say I feel any great sense of loss at having failed to accept the invitation." The tone was dry but still amused,  
"Have you not?" Jack's voice seemed to reach out and stroke her.  
That question seemed to get some dispassionate thought before she smiled brightly down at him,  
"No, I have not."

Jack shrugged and his smile faded as with great deliberation he straightened and looked away from her,  
"Your loss," he said dismissively.  
Her smile became a grin as she resumed un-plaiting his hair,  
"So you say."  
The smile didn't go away even as she fell silent and a sudden insight told Elizabeth that she wasn't done yet. Sure enough after a heartbeat or two she spoke again and from her disinterested voice Jack could not have guessed at her wicked expression,  
"But then again, perhaps you are right, after all I've been at sea a long time, my critical faculties might have atrophied in the salt air."  
In her hidden spot Elizabeth stifled a gasp for the implication was clear enough, but Jack made no other move other than to lean back again, his brows raised and his renewed smile openly hopeful. His opponent in the battle of words didn't pretend not to notice the expression but she just shrugged slightly and pulled at a thick hank of his hair,  
"We'll never know will we?"  
Jack gave a something close to a laugh and half rose from the hatch catching at her hand again while his smile became a look of wide eyed solicitude,  
"The idea of anythin' about your beautiful self atrophying is not good luv, therefore I think that it behooves me, as your guide and mentor in this place, to ensure that that is not the case," His voice was all concern but his fingers began a slow and suggestive walk up her arm.  
She slapped them away and he grinned in jaunty resignation as she pushed him back to his seat,  
"Don't worry yourself Captain Sparrow, I'll tell you if it becomes a matter of concern."

Jack just settled himself in his previous position and let her resume her hairdressing.  
It was clear this was a game of words the two of them had played before and without any ill feeling on either side, though Elizabeth could not escape the impression that something more than the words was passing between them. But the conversation shifted to the housekeeping of their coming pretence and the rising wind made it harder to catch their words, so she had sat in the shadows and watched as Elanor combed and smoothed Jack's hair, arranging it cleverly to hide the ropes of tangled knots before braiding it into several thick plaits that she wove together into a heavy queue. The ease between the pair of them was obvious and Jack made no attempt to hide his sensuous pleasure at her grooming, nor did she seem offended by it in any way at all. Elizabeth had been fascinated by her skill for she had never dressed her own hair in the days before Beckett and since then she had only managed to master the most simple of styles. They had promised her a maid again but at that moment she would rather have had her hostess's mastery of a brush.

Finally Elanor had handed Jack the mirror and watched with apparent amusement as he scrutinized her work from all angles before nodding his agreement. He got to his feet and Elizabeth prepared to hurry back to her cabin, for she could not move quickly anymore, but she halted as she heard his voice more clearly again as he started across the deck towards the hatch,  
"Won't always be able to stay at arms length Elanor."  
Elizabeth sank down again and applied her eye to the door crack in time to see Elanor put down her brush and pull him around, moving close to tuck some spare ribbon into his belt,  
"Oh I'll share a bed with you Jack if needs be, it wouldn't be a first for me. But you put a hand where I don't want it and I'll cut it off, and that will just be the start."  
He frowned, looking more forbidding than Elizabeth thought she had ever seen him, though the unusually sober hairdressing may have played its part in that,  
"Told you before, I've never forced a woman and never will. No woman." His voice held a rasp that made him seem even less Jack like, then the hard look eased and shifted to something more considering, more familiar, "but that's not to say I might not try a little persuasion," he said softly, as he caught her eye he raised a finger at her, "Gentle persuasion goes without sayin'"  
Elanor patted the ribbon in his belt and smiled at him,  
"Fine, as long as we share the definition of gentle and persuasion, but it wouldn't do to get it wrong Jack, could have serious consequences for some bits of you that I expect you value."  
He smiled warily and cast her hand, still hovering around his belt, a sideways look.  
"Didn't doubt it darling', the goods and I'll keep it in mind, you can count on that."

As he turned Elizabeth had known she could not wait any longer and had fled down the steps and back to the cabin to reflect on what she had seen and heard, but while it intrigued her it made little sense. Jack had referred to himself as Elanor's mentor, but why would a woman with her own ship need such a mentor? Whatever it was the mismatched pair shared some common ground, because for all the threatening words there had been no sense of danger in the exchange. No more than there was in his occasional disagreements with Mr Gibbs. Like Jack and Gibbs something unseen bound them together, but in this case it was something secret.

Elizabeth shivered, suddenly realizing the sun had risen and that in the yard below her window the first sleepy maid was stumbling to the pump. She rose slowly and headed to her couch, experience had taught she might now find sleep for an hour or two. As she clambered onto the high bed she wondered how to set about discovering the secret, for she was determined that by the time the pair of them left her she would know what it was too.

***

"Curiosity is stirring Jack, the sooner we are gone the better."

"Curiosity, whose curiosity?" Jack turned onto his side, propped his head on his hand and looked at her hopefully. "I'm all in favour of curiosity…" he reached out his other hand and played with the lace on the sleeve of her nightgown, "… in the right circumstances that is."

With an effort he kept his voice light and his smile in place, but for a moment he wished he had let the remark pass, not turned over and instead gone on staring at the wall, concentrating on that recently painted patch and trying to think of other things, as he did every morning before the maid arrived. But it was done, he was looking at her and he could only be glad that she was staring at the ceiling and not looking back at him. Without cosmetics to hide the true extent of her beauty her face alone was enough to send the wind from his lungs and the blood to parts of him that were already more than well stocked with it. Add to that the spread of her hair, silver and gold silk against the pillow, the lace covered swell below the long white throat and rounded shoulders, 'well no', he told himself, 'don't start adding it up, for the current reckoning is more than enough.' Where was that damn maid!

At least lying on his side this way other… things… were less likely to be noticed. Though he was pretty near sure that she knew very well why he turned away from her and stared at the wall until she rose to take her chocolate at the dressing table each morning. Pretty sure too that was why she took her chocolate there rather than in bed. Damn her for her considerate unconcern when he didn't seem to be able to achieve the same level of disinterest! Why he couldn't defeated him, after all she had made no pretence of virginal purity, why couldn't he face her with a grin and an invitation as he would the lasses in Tortuga when he was sure her knowledge was as detailed as theirs, if not as widely gained?

Oh damn! The tie at the neck of her nightdress was coming undone, that was all he needed, if she moved he might well find himself undone too.

"Elizabeth's."  
"Ah." Oh well at least it was something to distract him. "About what, exactly, is her curiosity rising? The chest? You. Us?"  
Oh no, he should not have said that, now she would look at him in that amused way and things would get harder than they were already, in more ways than one. Why was it that his tongue took charge of itself when faced with a beautiful woman?

Yes, she was looking at him in just the way he had expected, and he was almost willing to swear that her eyes had dipped away from his face for a moment there. Oh she knew alright..,,

"Us, most certainly, at least us, here. It occupies her thoughts more than she is comfortable with."  
That was tempting, almost an invitation, and he leant his head closer to her, fingers going to that loosening ribbon,  
"Well I must admit that it occupies my mind to some degree too."  
Bloody hell even his voice was betraying him now!  
"I've noticed." Her fingers closed around his, pulling them away from the tie and refastening it, "but it wouldn't be a good idea Jack, I've told you that before."

Endlessly, she had told him it endlessly, and he still couldn't see why. But it was clear that she had something else on her mind at this moment and experience told him she would not be swayed if that was the case. It might be important anyway. What was it she had said about curiosity? Whose curiosity? Anyone's could be dangerous at this moment. Concentrate man! It might be important, well more important than things that could wait and wouldn't prove fatal. Elizabeth, she had been talking about Elizabeth, what ill considered mischief was young Mrs. Turner about now?

He rolled over onto his back and raised his knees, crossing his hands behind his head,  
"So what else is she wondering about? I assume that it is what you are implying. The chest, well if she wonders about that is natural enough but she can't get at it to see, I've told you that."  
"No, she hasn't asked about that again. She accepts that it needs to be hidden, even when we go. But she is wondering about why you came to save her and what it is we are not telling her, and she knows there is something. With you in the matter she must be sure of it."  
Other thoughts retreated and the injustices of the past, and the dangers of the present, took full possession of his mind again.  
"Can't see why she should think so. Looked after her and her dear William pretty well since our paths crossed. Pair of them would be dead several times over if I hadn't been there to save them from themselves."  
"Perhaps, but you can't expect her to see it that way. Anyway she knows enough about you to be quite well aware that there might be more going on than she has been told about. That there probably is."  
"Why does no one believe me when I tell the truth," he said plaintively, "then blame me when they find out that I have." He looked sat her out of the corner of his eye, "Eh?"  
She smiled a little,  
"People are odd like that. They get uneasy when other people don't lie when they would. But you can't really blame her given all that Davy Jones business. Then there is the matter of myself."

"You?" he turned his head to look at her again, "what about you? She knows nothing of you, we were careful enough about that."  
"Ariadne tells me that she managed to get to deck level on one occasion, but it seems that she was more interested in what we were doing than the ship, thank the stars. She must wonder who I am and why I am assisting you and if I know what she suspects you know but aren't telling her."  
Her voice became reflective,  
"It doesn't help that she doesn't like me of course."  
"Not like you? Why not! What have you done that she wouldn't like you?" Jack sounded faintly annoyed.  
"You mean other than locking her in when she didn't want to be?"  
"Oh, well, yes I suppose she wouldn't like that."  
"Or challenging her ownership of her pet pirate?"  
"Pet! Pet!" Jack was now outraged. "If you are referring to me good self I must point out that I am not, and never will be, anyone's pet!"  
Elanor grinned,  
"Not how she sees it I bet, and I'd hazard a guess that Miss Swann was not a child who was generous with her toys."  
Jack glared,  
"First pets now toys, are you tryin' to be insulting or is it just co-incidental."

She sighed and settled herself a little more comfortably on the pillows,  
"Just saying what I see Jack. Anyway that's not the point, she was never going to like me and I always knew it. I'm a million miles from her view of the world and womanhood, I don't gossip, don't wonder what others think about me very much, and I am not overly interested in her doomed love. Add to that the fact that I don't notice babies and I'm not interested in who is pining for whom, and everything I do must be suspect in her mind."  
"Why? Not exactly the proper miss herself these days. Or hadn't you been listening?"  
Elanor sighed and looked back to the ceiling trying to gather her thoughts to explain them,  
"Not at all the same thing Jack."  
"Is it not?"  
"No, and don't pretend that you think it is. A wise man once said give me a child for eight years and you can have it for the rest of its life, or something to that effect, and it's true. Learn to the principles and expectations of a good man then and a good man, when it comes down to it, you will remain."  
"Really!"  
"Yes, I'm not saying that a man who is good at the foundations can't rot around the window frames so to speak, that he can't learn to think like a thief or behave like a bastard, because he can, if life supplies the right lessons. But the essence of a good man remains."  
"Well maybe, but let's leave good men out of it shall we, you were talking about Elizabeth."

"So I was, well it works the same way with other things. For those first eight or so years Miss Swann learned what made a good woman from those around her, and you can bet it didn't include ones like me. Chance forced her outside of what she expected of life, fate manoeuvred her into playing the woman of the moment, the pirate king, not choice or training. But that she did it doesn't change what she things of as good and right. She has had to play at being a force to be reckoned with, the decision maker, and she did it well enough, but its not who she is at the bottom."  
Jack shifted uneasily,  
"But it is who you are?" It wasn't really a question.  
She nodded slowly,  
"I know that it shows itself in a hundred little ways, it was bound to jar on her."  
He thought about that for a moment then sighed,  
"Aye, well. I can't say that's not true. She was always a mettlesome lass, and willful, but there is a world of difference between that and a navy officer I admit."  
"But she doesn't know and the idea will not occur to her because in this place it is inconceivable. She does wonder what I am though, and why I am helping you."  
A look of resignation flitted across his face,  
"With Elizabeth that means she will try to find out, and there will be little she will not do to find her answer. When she finds it….."  
"She will try to use it to her own advantage, just as you would, and her situation coupled with her dislike of me might influence what she considers to be an acceptable use. If she were threaten me with exposure Jack…"  
"I know. More at stake than just her future and she might not see that." He cast the woman beside him a worried look, "You'd not consider a permanent removal of said threat…would you?"

That earned him a serious and troubled look,  
"Don't ask me that Jack. I don't know and I don't want to have to contemplate the possibility. But whatever I had to do, I would do and I wouldn't let you stop me."  
He was silent for a moment, lying with his head tilted back and watching her with narrowed eyes, but he saw only troubled determination in her face and after a moment he sighed,  
"I know luv, and I'd not wish it to come to sword play between us."  
The quiet but purposeful clip of heels on the stairs betrayed that Rebecca was up and on her way to her lady. He leaned over and risked dropping a quick kiss on that lady's shoulder,  
"Other play most certainly, but not sword." There was gentle rap on the door and he risked another kiss, this time to her neck, leaning up to whisper into her ear, "So it seems that you are right, it's time we were leaving," just as the door opened.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20 Leverage

Dinner had been plain but good, the wine passable, though the port had suffered a little on its journey here. But neither of the men seated at the now cleared table paid any attention to that. Even though the candles were burning low and the servants were long since about other business, the two kept their voices low.

The captain was ending his report,  
"Whosoever she was, this woman he talks of, it does not appear that she was the angel with a flaming sword described to us in Tortuga. So there is no more evidence about where that lady has come from, if she has, or why she is, apparently, in Sparrow's pocket."  
"No." Charles Norrington sighed as he pushed the decanter across the table, "Assuming that she exists at all."  
Hathaway frowned in thought,  
"Someone one was with Sparrow in Tortuga sir, and she made a mighty impression on all of those who saw her, whoever, and whatever, she was. I do not think that the woman this man claims he saw on the Dutchman would have had such an effect. There has been no suggestion of other worldly origins made for her after all, even though he barters the story for his life. If he even dreamed we might believe such a thing then I think that he would claim it."  
"True."

Admiral Norrington took a swallow of port and waved his glass in the direction of his companion,  
"How does he do it? Sparrow I mean. Why does he always seem able to do what is least expected?" He scowled at his glass, "Angels no less; and him a scallywag of some years standing, whatever else he might be, or have been!" His voice took on a baffled note, "How did he find her, whoever she is, and why on earth is she aiding him? From what they say it cannot be because she needs his protection."  
"No sir, if any of that is true then she can need no man's protection. Sparrow included."  
Norrington shook his head slowly,  
"There must be some gain for her." He paused, then frowned, then shrugged, "Or some unknown link that binds them in some way. I had always assumed that at least some of the stories about Sparrow were just wild tales dreamed up by the street corner criers, but the more I hear the more I wonder if there isn't something other worldly about him too! The man certainly appears to have an uncanny ability to do the seemingly impossible."  
Hathaway thought about that for a moment,  
"There are some strange tales about him and his doings it must be admitted." He said eventually, "I still haven't decided what I think about the story of his death and return from the locker."

Norrington's face became sombre,  
"I remember, and no more do I. It still seems too fanciful to be possible, but then so was Davy Jones and he proved to be real enough. We must not forget that."  
"No sir we must not forget that." Hathaway hesitated and wondered if he should mention the sea goddess too, but decided against doing so for the moment, sipping his wine slowly while he thought,  
"The stories about Sparrow are embellished without a doubt, but who by is a different matter. Even so I doubt that Sparrow would protest if his legend were gilded a little, who ever did it. But it's also true that he fired himself off the deck of the Endeavour, Groves account, and the damage we know she sustained at that time, bear the tale out. It takes a man who is both desperate and daring to do such a thing. As for the rest? Well look behind the play acting and what you see is a man more than commonly clever and quick witted, and perhaps a little more astute and skilled at reading men than most others. Given his past he may not care much if he lives or dies either, which would allow him to run greater risks. Certainly the reports of his near hanging here suggest that he approached it in a rather philosophical manner, particularly given what had gone before."  
Norrington inclined his head,  
"James was most uncomfortable about that, even though he saw it as his duty. But he certainly revised his first opinion of the man's abilities, though that might not have survived the sinking of the Dauntless." The admiral gave a short and humourless laugh, "Groves seems to remain most admiring."  
Hathaway smiled,  
"Yes, he does. Almost enthusiastic on occasions, but he is of a mind to admire anyone hated by Beckett at this moment, not surprising when he lost friends on the Endeavour thanks to Beckett's dithering. That might be to our advantage for he might be a good emissary to send to bargain, if we are lucky enough to need one. But he has no sensible explanation for how Sparrow manages the impossible, or at least the very improbable, either."

There was silence for a moment, both men considering what remained to be said, both rather unwilling to broach the matter. Then Norrington, knowing that it couldn't be sidestepped, asked slowly,  
"So are you of the opinion that the young woman our deserter spoke of might have been Miss Swann?"  
Hathaway responded with equal reluctance,  
"In truth sir, I do not know. Only that it might have been her."  
Norrington shook his head slowly,  
"Strange thing to say but I find myself hoping that it was. Rather that than .." he cleared his throat, "….another fate. I suppose it's not impossible, if unlikely. I gather young Mr. Turner taught his prospective bride how to use a sword before their nuptials. Odd thing to be doing but I can see why he might feel the need, though it is less clear why Swann agreed."  
"For the same reasons I expect sir. He was a fond parent and it must have been an appalling shock to them all when Barbossa took her in that manner."  
Norrington nodded then sighed again,  
"True. James was distraught, though he tried to hide it. But the sad truth is that sword lessons would not have saved her then, nor even later. I cannot see Turner being overly rough or vigorous in his lessons with her, so how prepared could she have been? Had it been Sparrow it might have been different, the man would not let nicety get in the way of practicality, if I read him rightly, but her blacksmith had notions of chivalry I gather. Either way can she have had little if any experience of using a blade in anger before Beckett came."  
The captain considered that then nodded,  
"Very true. But perhaps it makes little odds, as the man said it seems likely that she went down with the Dutchman, who ever she was."

There was another silence then Norrington drained his glass and refilled it, setting the decanter down with a clatter,  
"But if it was her, and if she survived the battle, then she might know what Sparrow is about. He seems to have taken a rather indulgent line with her after all, to her endless good fortune."  
"Indeed he did and if that continued then she might indeed know."  
"Might she know what he did with this heart too? After all if it was her in heathen attire that the man saw then she might also have been the person who flew the Dutchman with him." There was stubborn hope in his voice.  
"Perhaps but that seems less likely, even if she got away. Sparrow is rarely loose tongued, particularly to young ladies. One reason he is still alive; assuming that he is."  
Norrington would not easily let go of the idea.  
"But she might know where to find him, even if she does not know the all of it?"

Hathaway considered that.  
"Yes, I suppose that she might know that. If she is alive then someone has assisted her, and Sparrow must be considered a candidate for that helper. I gather that Beckett put her father's estate beyond her reach, even if she had known of his death."  
"So the papers we found suggest. Of course representations are being made at court to reverse all of Beckett's actions, that will take time but I have no doubt that it will happen. The company cannot be allowed to assume the rights and prerogatives of the crown with impunity; it would set a deplorable precedent! Why we would have every merchant with a few ships setting himself up in a fiefdom. The king knows only too well what have happened if Beckett had succeeded, his demands would have known no bounds! It could only have been a matter of time before he made demands on the crown itself."  
"Not a comfortable thought sir."  
"No, and we must be glad it fell out as it did, though it would have been better still if no one outside his majesty's navy had known of it. But we must do what we can to prevent unwelcome outcomes. As for our secret guest, does he have any more to tell you?"

The captain watched the candle light soften the red of his wine for a moment replaying the interview of earlier in his head, eventually he sighed,  
"He might, I am taking some measures to loosen his tongue but it may be necessary to pay for his information."  
Norrington grunted,  
"Escaping the noose should be enough for him, but it won't be of course. Never found that brutality does the trick either, men may talk freely under the lash but not often of the truth. But you must do what you can, and as you see fit, for matters are pressing."  
"I do not trust the lash either sir, and there are usually more… effective and less," he raised his wine glass to the Admiral, "betraying methods."  
The Admiral smiled,  
"Indeed there are. With luck he'll not even recall what he has told you. Always useful that, particularly in such times."  
"Indeed it is sir. But am I to take it that there is more bad news from the Governor?"  
"Yes, though not much different from our own intelligence."

Norrington set his glass down and looked around the room as if might be possible that a spy had crept in and hidden in the corner unnoticed, then he nodded Hathaway towards the door. Only when the captain had checked that no one loitered in the passageway and returned to his seat did the Admiral lean forward and speak quickly and quietly,  
"The Spanish are moving more ships to the Caribbean, information from various merchant vessels suggest that six set sail from Cadiz two weeks ago, and there are rumours from others of a Dutch flotilla heading this way too, neither of which seems likely to be a co-incidence."  
"No, it does not. Is there anything else?"  
"More than enough, and none of it good. Dutch agents have been seen in Havana and even here in Port Royale, and there is talk that Spanish and Dutch colonists are arming themselves all across the Caribbean."  
He stared towards the empty fireplace while Hathaway watched him quietly.  
"James's fears are coming to pass Captain. It no longer matters what is true, what men chose to believe is what counts now, and they choose, as always, to believe the worst or that which justifies their own desires. Damn Beckett and his ambition, he may yet sink us all."  
He looked back to the silent Hathaway.  
"What it takes captain, do what it takes, there is no choice left for the devil has us all by the balls. If there is any chance that this woman, whoever she is, lived and knows where Sparrow is then we must find her, and him, and his hold over Jones, before war finds us all."

Three days! Elizabeth was still aghast at the casual disclosure of this morning. Three days and they would be gone, and she had not discovered anything more about Elanor Cavendish and her secrets. Three days and they would depart and she had nothing in her possession that she might use to persuade them to remain with her for longer, or to return once they left.

Jack had chosen his time to tell her of their departure carefully and cleverly, seated at the breakfast table, quietly dressed in a dark brocaded coat and fine wool breeches, the thick braid of dark hair down his back ordered and tidy, the very epitome of a successful man, and with his servants at his back. In such circumstances she could hardly throw the chocolate at him, as she had dearly wished to do, nor could she shout or demand or plead without risking her own future. She couldn't even claim that she was unprepared, for they had told her how they intended to leave even before they had arrived and Jack had stuck to the prepared excuse, that the ship that was going to take him and his 'wife' to India on business, would be making port up the coast in five days time. They would travel up the day before to ensure they met and caught the next tide. No one hearing him would have thought anything unusual in the speech.

Elizabeth had wondered then if the Black Pearl was coming to join the lady's ship, and if not how they expected to get away without someone seeing something the pair didn't want seeing. Not that it really mattered how, not to her, it was the when that had taken the breath from her and set her thinking furiously. She had two days, three at most, to find out enough about their secret to use as barter if they refused to reconsider their plan.

Leverage Jack would have called it, and she understood its' value in a way she hadn't when she first heard the pirate use the term about a jar of dirt. But he had been right and without knowledge to use as her leverage she might be unable to prevent the pair of them sailing out of her life and leaving her alone forever. The surprise was the degree of reluctance she felt to letting that happen, for, while she had no desire to raise her child on a pirate ship, she did not wish to lose the one living link to Will, and Jack was that link. If he disappeared then she would have no way of finding Will should she need to, and no one she could even think of asking to help her. She needed something to keep Jack tied to her and her child until Will returned, and this secret, whatever it was, seemed the only possibility.

All day her brain had remained focused on that, even as she had smiled and chatted and cooed over a new friend's recently walking daughter. All day she had considered this plan and that idea, hiding her furious cogitation behind a demure face, agreeing in a placid voice that it was a shame that her sister had to leave so soon when she was asked about it. As the hours ticked by the mental cogs flew faster but to little avail, and she faced the evening with no more idea of what she might do than she had possessed at noon.

Now with dinner over and tea cooling on the table before her Elizabeth looked across at her 'sister', glorious in sea green and pearls, sitting quietly, listening to the ebb and flow of chatter around her, for the moment kept to the company of women by the circulation of the port. Not for the first time she wondered how these ladies did not see the separation of this woman from those around her, why they did not realize her quiet was something more than the serenity of a young woman well and happily married, or the modest reserve of a good governess's training. Now of all times, minus the shield of her 'husband', why did they not know her for the intruder that she was? Did they not notice that her look saw past their finery and stripped them all naked of pretence, did they not feel the strength in her hand when she took theirs, or shiver in the cold of her gaze and her determination? Could they not detect the steel beneath the velvet of her flawless skin, nor wonder at the depth of knowledge in the eyes of one who looked so young and untried? Could they not tell her for the pirate that she was?

But they did not see, any more than they saw past the carefully crafted fiction to the woman that she herself had become. She sighed quietly, nor could she truly wish that they might penetrate the glorious smokescreen that Jack and Elanor had created, for then they might well see through her too, and she could not risk that. Not for her child's sake, nor even for Will's.

Elizabeth, looked around the room, the men would be some time yet and without Jack to aid her Elanor would find it harder to avoid closer contact with others, which could be used to advantage if she remembered an earlier conversation correctly. Her 'sister' would keep her conversations short and superficial and would avoid any hint of discord, which would allow Elizabeth to use her great social ease to some purpose. If she could arrange it so that Elanor was kept occupied tomorrow then there would be a chance to get time alone with Jack, and while she doubted that she would manipulate Elanor into indiscretion Jack most certainly had his weak points. Attack those and she had a fair chance of discovering what she needed to know, and she knew where and how to launch her attack.

With a secret smile she set about working her way around the room and back to Mrs Collingwood.

The days on the Black Pearl had passed in relative peace; Gibbs had watched Anamaria with anxiety for the first few days, concerned about what she might turn her mind to with Jack gone. His fears proved groundless however, she made no mention of the wisdom of leaving Jack to his own devices, nor the profit that could be turned by taking a prize or two; whatever Jack and the lady captain had said to her had convinced her of the need to follow the plan. She hadn't even tried to throw Barbossa over the side though she played no part in keeping him alive and had commented unfavourably on his origins and history at every possible occasion.

In line with Jack's instructions they had wandered aimlessly always staying away from the shipping lanes and out of sight and returning to Tortuga at regular intervals to listen for any rumour that things might be going awry. But there was no word of their captain's doings, no whispers to cause concern either in the taverns and doss houses of the port nor in the markets or more respectable quarters where Polly plied her trade in physic and livestock. As far as they could tell Jack Sparrow had dropped out of sight as completely as the moon at sunrise.

Not that the news was all good though, for the taverns and waterfronts were awash with tales of Spanish and Dutch ships sighted in some numbers, and in places where they were not usually seen. Word was that the naval force at Port Royale had also been reinforced and there were all sorts of stories of men of wealth and power calling on the new Govenor at strange times of day and night. Most worryingly to Gibbs mind was the news one Admiral Norrington, surely some relation of the ex Commodore, had taken personal command of the forces there; which could bode no good for anyone who sailed as a pirate, and certainly none who had been involved with said ex commodore's fall from grace.

The extent of the trouble that might be coming had not yet touched Tortuga, no more than it had touched the Pearl, but on the second night of their second visit they learned how much might be at stake. That was the night someone tried to take Anamaria, and as Gibbs later commented to Sampson, that error could only be explained by desperation.

Though to be fair to her attackers there had been six of them and she had been apparently alone. They couldn't have been pirates though, for none would have made so elementary a mistake. Which suggested that they were from some king's navy, or were Company bully boys, either of which counted as a new development in the life of the pirate port.

Anamaria herself was of little help, for she didn't recognise their accents, other than they weren't English, being more concerned with getting out with a whole skin. Not that she had needed to hold them for long, for not even Barbossa would walk alone in this part of the town and Gibbs and Marty had left Sampson's place with her, only an urgent need to shed some of the ale they had drunk preventing them from being at her side when the assailants struck. Anamaria herself had first thought the attack nothing more than a group of curs high on lust and without the coin for a whore. Only when they proved more sober than she had expected did she feel any concern, and she had no idea of their real purpose until one pinned her against a wall, knife at her throat and demanded to know what Sparrow had done with the heart. She had cut off his inquiry with a knee to his crotch and laid his face open with her knife as he doubled over, only to find herself caught be two others who showed no interest in molesting her person but hissed a demand to know where Sparrow was into her ear, while his partner suggested that he might be willing to trade the information for her pretty self unharmed.

It was at that point that Gibbs arrived with a roar and a drawn pistol closely followed by Marty with knife and cutlass. That roar and the clatter of steel brought Sampson and two of his bully boys out into the alley, closely followed by Mullroy and Murtog who surprised everyone by setting about the attackers with a will and a total distain for any sense of fair play. Two went down to Sampson's men, at least one of whom would never rise again in this life, one lost his wits as Mullroy hammered his head into the alley wall, another fell before Gibbs fists while Marty and Anamaria held the remaining two against the same wall with a knife at their gut. Sampson satisfied that matters were under control called for rope and tied those still standing before hauling them off into his barn; none of the party asked what would happen to them but if anyone could make them talk it would be Sampson.

"Best leave this to me." Sampson said as he returned to join them in the darkest corner tap room, "better you are not seen here for a while in case anyone comes looking for them. If you take my advice you will set sail on the morning tide and stay clear of the town for a while. I'll leave word for you at the dockside if I learn anything of value, though I'd take a wager I know where they come from and what they were about."  
"Ye do?" Gibbs asked uncertainly.  
"Ay, they be Dutch by my reckonin' Josh. Whatever Sparrow has that is of such value more than the Spanish know of it now. Matters are like to get heated quickly and there will be more spies than these lurking in the shadows until the matter is settled."  
With that he'd nodded his goodbye as a barmaid hollered to him and strode to deal with the need for a new barrel.

Back on the Pearl he had set the crew to loading the last of the supplies and making ready while he and Anamaria had headed for the only certain privacy, the cabin where Barbossa lay still and silent as a corpse.  
"Almost wish he'd wake' treacherous dog that he is," Gibbs had muttered as he stared down at the pock marked face, stiff as that of a wax doll. "he might have some idea of what be happenin'."  
"Doubt it," Anamaria said as she set bottle and glasses on the table, "never was one to see past the next haul, and this needs sight well beyond that."  
"Not argue with that," Gibbs frowned into his grog and wondered again at Jack Sparrow's canniness, for it seemed that he had been right and that the matter of Beckett was not yet settled. "But I'd thought us done with Beckett when he went down. Jones too."  
Anamaria was characteristically blunt in her response.  
"Fool, then, if you thought it were! Men see a new way to gain power and they will not let it go lightly." She pointed a emphatic finger at him, "Kings and princes are often no less pirates than we are, you can be sure of that."  
Gibbs sighed into his glass,  
"Almost makes you wonder if it would not have been better to have kept him alive."  
She snorted her derision,  
"Would have been no difference if Beckett had lived, what he had others would have fought and slaughtered to take. Once the heart was found there could be no peace for anyone at sea until it were lost again." She frowned at her drink, "Better it were never found at all!"  
"But Jack needed it!"  
Anamaria's frown deepened as she thought about that for a moment, turning her glass in her hands, but finally she shrugged,  
"Aye that he did, and you'll not hear me say he were not right to do all he could to save himself. Man has a right to fight to escape what Jones would have done to him."  
"So it had to be found."

Anamaria leaned back in her chair and cradled the glass in her hands with a look of deep consideration as she replied,  
"Maybe, depends on what you mean by found. Jack Sparrow now, he'd have used the heart to buy his life and freedom, aye and the Pearl, but he'd have done no more than that because that is the sum of his desires. Might be a fool and a rake but he's a clever man when it comes down to it and he'd know the consequences, and there is little malice in him and no taste for power. He'd have kept the secret and used it for nothin' more than stain' alive and free."  
"Not like Beckett." Gibbs sighed.  
"No, not like Beckett. Nor Norrington, or even William Turner come to that. They were men who believed they had right on their side, and that made them dangerous, aye and blind to the truth of their acts, as those who come after them believing the same will be blind."

Gibbs cast a wary eye over the top his glass, this conversation was beginning to take on very Jack like tones, it seemed that Anamaria grew more like him every day.  
"How come a slip of lass like you knows about men of power then?" He mocked gently.  
That bought him a glare and a colder note slid into her voice  
"Slip of lass always knows about the power of men if she's poor Mr Gibbs, just like a slave do, for where they are concerned all men are men of power. None see what men, even the respectable ones, are capable of more than we do. Even high born ladies are at men's mercy, unless they have the good fortune to have a loving father or a considerate husband. I'll wager even Miss Elizabeth Swann learnt that quickly enough in Barbossa's company. "  
He glowered in sudden anger, for Polly had said something very similar to him weeks ago,  
"She had no cause to complain about Jack as I recall, nor of any who sailed with him."  
Anamaria cast him a scornful look,  
"Rape has never been Sparrow's way, no more than the lash or the iron is; he'd not see the fun in it. Seduction now, that he might have tried, but he has his rules it seems and sticks to them, I never heard of him ruining a maid even with her consent." She gave a grim smile, "A thief he is, but not of virtue, nor of anything a body aint willin' to risk."

Gibbs nodded at that,  
"Can't steal from those that aren't of a mind to be stolen from, nor cheat an honest man. That's what Jack would say."  
She cast him a look of disgust,  
"Not doubt it, but he stole my boat."  
"Borrowed it, "Gibbs corrected her, suddenly recalling that conversation of a lifetime ago with surprising clarity, "he intended to return it."  
"Ha! So he said, but I never saw it again."  
"Aye… well, even Jack has his ventures that fail."  
"That he does, cost him his life one such did, if the tale be true" she cast a cold look across at the bed and the silent Barbossa, 'let's hope this ain't another one of them."

Only later did Gibbs wonder what venture she was talking about, and just what it was that Jack had told her to cause her to think that way.


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21 Dangerous waters**

"I knew that she was planning something."  
"She's given to it. Not to say it works in most cases mind, but she plots often enough."

Rebecca had been dismissed to tend to Elizabeth's greater needs leaving Jack and Elanor alone and free to talk without fear of being overheard. This was the only time of the day when that was the case and they had got into the habit of reviewing the progress of their plans in the hour before and just after they retired to their shared bed.

In recent days it had occurred to Elanor that this time had become too comfortable on both sides, for Jack no longer bothered to try to raise a blush from her, nor attempt seduce her in any serious way, while she in turn had come to accept the occasional caress (for the benefit of the maid he maintained, and never anything she might consider too intimate and provocative) and the incidental and casual touching of close proximity, as nothing unusual. But her own pleasure in his company and ease at his nearness, and the sometimes wistful expression in his eyes when he looked in her direction, was a warning that they were approaching the danger zone. She suspected that under all his pragmatism and hedonism lay the remnants of a romantic soul, and if that were the case then the sooner they could separate the better it would be for both of them. She at least was under no illusion about the risks in the situation, however casual Jack's amorous encounters generally were, or how satisfactory he claimed to find that state of affairs to be, this was not a situation he was accustomed to and she wondered how much his stated opinion was shaped by the choices he felt that he had in the life in which he found himself. Just like her, for though their back ground and experiences might differ widely they also had much in common. They were both self reliant, solitary and isolated people, maybe even lonely, cut off from the ordinary lives of those around them by unusual circumstances, and separated, even from friends, by the demands of command. This situation, such closeness with another person, was rare for both of them; and it would be all too easy to mistake their pretend domesticity, this fake intimacy, for something more meaningful and real.

This evening was a case in point.

Elanor was seated at the dressing table, nightdress on and hair down her back while Jack had shed his coat and waistcoat and was in the process of pulling his shirt over his head, and though the words were a little muffled she had no difficulty in reading his tone. Jack was in Jonathon mode and he was irritated. Elanor watched as his dark head emerged from the tangle of white linen, a frown creasing the broad brow, and reflected that Jonathon was getting the upper hand more often with each day that passed. She wondered if Jack both realised that and knew its dangers, and if that was one reason he was so determined to be gone; the sudden surge of affectionate sympathy the thought brought was rapidly and severely repressed, and she sighed,  
"But she has probably managed it this time. I am committed to this damned trip and she will probably be struck by some pregnant woman's malaise at the last moment; at least that would be my guess at what will happen. But I can't see any way around it. She has played it very skillfully I'll give her that."  
Jack shook out his shirt and draped it across a chair before he turned to smile wryly at her,  
"She had the advantage of you there, given that this is her world but not yours, can't blame yourself for that and it was a risk we knew we would run."  
"True enough." Elanor turned her eyes back to the mirror and picked up the hair brush to smooth the tangle, only recently released from the elaborate pile Rebecca had contrived this morning, prior to braiding it.

He stood and watched the movement of the brush, as always finding the sight of her brushing her hair soothing, and pleasurable too it had to be admitted. Not for the first time as he watched the steady movement of the bristle through her hair he was aware of both a strong desire to take over the operation for himself, and a strange and inexplicable sense of peace. Or rather a feeling of quiet ease and contentment that not was usual when he was away from the sea and the Pearl, and one that not even the machinations of Elizabeth could shake. He had come to look forward to this hour they had to themselves, a time when he could be the gentleman or the pirate as his mood took him and without fear that the lady would be in any way at a stand however quickly he might turn and turn about. Nor was there any denying that looking at her was a pleasure that never palled, or that he had enjoyed the envy in the eyes of other men when they saw her on his arm; yet somehow, and to his continuing surprise and confusion, he had discovered that at this time of the evening he could look at her with pleasure and with desire, yet without lust. Even with the nightgown. It was most ……unexpected, all the more so because he found himself enjoying the feeling and increasingly reluctant to do anything that might end it or strike a discordant note between them. Though that was not the fear it might have been once, for he had found that she understood him far better than he had ever imagined she could when he first awoke on her ghost crewed ship.

No, it had to be faced, he could no longer deny that this time of the evening, the two of them alone and conversing as equals, reflecting on the people and events around them, planning and reviewing their intentions, was becoming a thing to be looked forward to. Couldn't deny either that this understanding, the accord, between them was something he felt a wish to sustain. Every night he told himself that the loss of it would fade into unimportance again once he was back on the Pearl, but in truth it had gone from necessity into a desired thing, almost treasured, without him noticing and, for the moment at least, he desired to keep it so much so that it frightened him.

This ease and understanding was instantly demonstrated for Elanor seemed to feel him watching and her eyes came up to meet his in the glass, her look calm, unembarrassed at his half stripped state, and only mildly questioning. Jack found that he had no reluctance to explain, being sure that she would both understand and appreciate the situation.

Elanor watched him as she continued to move the brush through her hair, noting that the soft and wistful look was even more pronounced this evening and wondered briefly how much was Jonathon and how much was Jack, and how much the two were becoming one. There was no way of knowing, but nor could there be any missing the sudden appearance of affection in his face, and the relaxation that followed him dropping his guard, the loss of a tension that was so habitual with him that it was only noticeable when it was gone. She suppressed the feeling of gladness the sight brought, and the momentary sadness that followed it, before deciding that he had better be distracted away from the desire for something that they both knew could never exist. Elizabeth was always good for that.  
"So what do you think she plans to do with me out of the way?"

Jack smiled, and Jonathon retreated, and he came and stood behind her, the soft look gone and his eyes glittering with mischief,  
"Pay me a visit I expect. With all canons primed too. No worries, I'll make sure she is not disappointed."  
Elanor cast him a considering look in the glass,  
"At this stage of her pregnancy I doubt she could prime a canon, much less roll one out."  
That turned Jack's smile to a grin.  
"Ah but she will take care that the power is well wetted."  
He saw the sudden confusion in her face and leaned in towards her, one hand coming to rest on her shoulder, silvery strands of her hair catching against the darker hair of his bare forearm,  
"Rum. That will be her powder. Or maybe brandy or port. But some strong spirit, she will have secreted a bottle or two of one or the other somewhere for such an eventuality and will seek to ply me with drink and so get her wicked way."  
"Ah, I see. Her wicked way being…."  
"Wheedling me into telling her more about your good self."  
That caused her to frown, and laying aside the brush she tilted her head back and looked up at him, he looked down at her in silence for a moment and then his smile and his voice softened,  
"That will be both her point and her purpose luv."  
Elanor's look took on a hint of challenge,  
"Why would she want to know that? And why now when we will be gone soon?"

Jack leant further forward until he could feel the curve of her spine against his chest and the warmth of the skin of her back against his bare flesh through the silk of her nightdress, but she neither flinched nor moved away and he dropped his free hand to rest on her other shoulder.  
"To discover enough that she thinks we don't want her to know so that she will be able to bend me, us, to her will," he said gently.  
She smiled then, with a hint of self mockery, and nodded, but without moving away,  
"Ah, yes. I should have thought of that. All this talk of dresses and servants and children must be rotting my brain." the smile brightened, "that or the absence of brandy. Your legendary addiction to rum, yes I should have remembered. Does she really think it matters enough to you that you would give her such an advantage in exchange?"

Jack shivered, recalling another time when Elizabeth had used what she thought to be a weakness in him to his harm, remembering the coldness in her eyes and the unconcern on her face as she had turned away and left him to a terrible death. The sea green eyes looking up at him could be cold too but he had never seen an expression there that matched the one he had seen in Elizabeth's eyes that momentous day. For a moment Elanor's regard was steady but then suddenly her look softened as if she knew what he was seeing, and he knew that she could read his look. He'd had that particular nightmare only the once while in her company, but he had woken from it to find himself held close against her shoulder, her hand holding his sword arm as he strove to spear the blankets. She had said nothing and released him as soon as she knew he was awake, but she stayed closer than usual to him and he was well aware that she had not slept afterwards, certainly not while he remained awake. That recollection pushed the picture of Elizabeth's last words to him that day away, leaving instead the image of his 'wife's' angelic face and all seeing eyes. A far better one he had to admit, but he shivered again anyway, the warmth of her hair against his skin reminding him that the nights were still chilly and he was stripped to the waist. Reluctantly he released her and moved away to claim his nightshirt from the chest beside the wall, slipping it over his head before unfastening his breeches, concentrating on what he was doing rather than look any longer at the glow of her skin in the candlelight or the perfection of her face now it was cleaned of powder and rouge and the other things she did to mask her angelic appearance.  
"Maybe," was all he said.

"I see, she doesn't know you at all, does she?" Elanor's tone was considering.  
He stepped out of his breeches and drawers, the linen of his night shirt falling down around his calves as he straightened, wondering , and not for the first time, why he performed this pantomime each evening when he knew she was well aware of what it was he was covering, having stripped him almost the moment she met him. But he had found the idea of doing anything else unthinkable without asking her permission, and that he couldn't bring himself to do, so he continued to do it and she continued not to notice. He took time to lay the discarded items neatly before turning to her with a smile,  
"It would seem not. Though to be fair to her I have taken her to task with regards to the matter of rum, and the burning of it, before." He paused for a moment, looking reflective, then shrugged, " 'tis also true that she has seen me in me cups."  
"Did you tell her anything of importance that time?"  
That brought a short crack of laughter,  
"No, though it took me some effort to keep my hands from around her neck!" He cast Elanor a droll look, "The idea of days, let alone weeks, alone with her and without the benefit of rum was not something I considered with….. equanimity."  
"I can imagine. She can be somewhat…. tiring, at least if she had the same approach to life and people then as she does now."  
That brought one of those golden grins that had been rare since they arrived her and took up their roles,  
"Darlin' you have no idea!" The smile paled a little and his eyes took on a far away look, "She burnt all the shade and food too. And us with just the one pistol!" He quirked an eyebrow in her direction, "Weeks of being fried by the wind and the sun did not appeal at all, trust me on that!"

Elanor smiled faintly in return,  
"I don't suppose it would. Nor to her either I would have thought. One last, desperate, throw of the dice then?"  
He shrugged,  
"I'd have been less annoyed if I had thought it that, but I didn't. Sheer arrogance it were, and lack of due consideration of the implications, certainly for me good self. Though I suppose it was no more than she thought was right by her, and for all the foolhardiness of it the ruse worked on that occasion."  
"But it would have been an unpleasant death of it hadn't."  
"Aye, or if it had brought someone other than the navy, which was as likely as not, but I never told her that, and I doubt her father or the Commodore did either. No matter, it didn't happen, so no rum spilt in vain."  
She shot him a considering look and rose from the dressing table,  
"Will it be spilt in vain this time?"  
"Most certainly luv, though I'll try to avoid the spillage if I can. No worries, I know the stakes. I've no intention of throwing her an ace at this stage in the game."

Elanor moved closer to him, raising the brush and indicating that he should take her place at the mirror. He did as he was bid and leaned back against her while she released the complicated braid that hid the length and tangle of his hair,  
"So what is she after?" she asked as she eased the brush through the thick dark mass. "Is it just pique, or curiosity, or something more serious that she is contemplating?"  
Jack sighed faintly and smiled at her with a rueful look  
"Leverage would be my expectation. Though it pains me to say it I fear that I must take the blame for teaching her about that."  
"Leverage? Regarding what?"  
"Remains to be seen. She has the lad she wanted, a child on the way and such security as can be offered. But she wants something else."  
"What?"  
He frowned at her in the glass,  
"On this occasion I cannot tell. She must know there is nothing I can presently do about William's state, nor about where the Dutchman must sail. But there is something she has her pirates eye upon of that I am sure. Can't be that she wants to return to the Cove for she would not need you out of the way to ask for that. Ask me again tomorrow."

The frown faded and he closed his eyes in contentment as she continued the not inconsiderable job of restoring the respectability of his hair, "but enough of Elizabeth and her machinations, they can wait till the morrow. At least…… tell me luv, what is this outing she has press ganged you into?"

Hathaway made his way back to his room with a heavy heart. There was no point in returning to Intrepid until he had all he could get from their secret 'visitor', who, if his orders had been followed, would even now be carousing with his jailors. The weary captain wondered when, if ever, he would get an opportunity to carouse for himself again.

As he tossed his hat onto the chair beneath the tiny window he tried to imagine a future like the past, but failed totally. They, he, had crossed a Rubicon and there was no going back. Things that had been known could not now be unknown, and the attendant consequences of that were heavy indeed. There had been many dark moments in his past, and he had no illusions about the evil men could do, but it had been a long time since he had felt so despondent, nor so coldly and bitterly angry at the damage one man could do. But tonight he was as close to despair as he had been for some while, and his anger at the risks Beckett had exposed them to knew no bounds. Murder he could not approve of, but he could find it in his heart to wish that someone in some back alley brawl had taken Becket's life years ago. Truth was that if he had been asked to arrange such a death then he would have done it.

Slowly he undid his dress jacket and then threw aside his wig, if he was to succeed tomorrow then he needed to be able to think quickly, and so he needed sleep. As he shed the rest of his clothes he continued to turn matters around in his mind.

As Norrington no doubt suspected his career had not been a usual one, at least not from the point at which he had smelt burning flesh for the first time, Jack Sparrow's burning flesh, though the man hadn't been Sparrow then. He was a naval officer, and knew how to command a ship well enough, but he was in truth the king's man, and went where the king needed him to go, to learn those things the king needed to know. Like who were friend or foe, and what was being done in the king's name in the shadows where a man's ambition could feel itself to be unobserved. British dominion was too great now for anyone to be sure that only those to be trusted wielded power, and their enemies knew very well how to exploit the weakness and grudges that even the richest were prey to. The risks of men like Beckett gaining influence, men who thought only of profit for themselves and who trusted their wealth to protect them from the consequences of the events they set in train, grew greater every day. James Norrington and his ilk could protect against pirates but they could do nothing against those 'honest' men who sold their countrymen to the devil in dark and secret places for their own vanity or gain, no more could the generals nor all the massed ranks of the infantry. No. it was men like himself who held the line against those secret betrayers and plot makers. But never in his career had he come across a betrayal on such a scale as Beckett's, for he had sought an artifact that no man should even have known about, then used it in the most crass and dangerous of manners. Why? Why had he risked so much? To settle a score? Or to lay claim to the crown itself? Hathaway was still not sure.

He reached for his nightshirt.

Or had he really seen it as just business? An opportunity to allow his Company to annex the territory and shipping lanes of the Caribbean for their own profit? It would have been profitable there could be no denying that, but for how long? How long could it have been before the Spanish and the Dutch and Portuguese strove to take it from him? They might or might not have succeeded, but the waters around these islands would have been red with blood and fire while they tried, and they would never have given up. Piracy would have been a minor gnat bite in comparison to the carnage they would have created.

With a sigh he climbed into his bed and settled himself against the pillow.

Yet all this might still come to pass. For now the heart was known about, now others knew that it was possible to control the Flying Dutchman for personal advantage, and so the danger was as great as if Beckett had lived. It was clear that Admiral Norrington believed that war was almost inevitable now, unless others could be persuaded that the heart, and so control of the Dutchman, had been put beyond the reach of men again. To do that they must sail some very dangerous waters, they must find Sparrow and persuade him to co-operate, despite whom or whatever it was that was hiding and protecting him so completely.

He blew out the candle and stared into the blackness.

But he feared that finding Sparrow would not be enough, and that was the source of his despondency. He remembered the young captain they had branded in that cell all those years ago quite well; he had been a clever man, a long sighted man, and one who was content with his lot and largely without malice. Was the man that Sparrow had become so very different? He doubted it, for his deeds spoke of a very similar man but on the other side of the law. This meant that Sparrow probably knew quite well what was happening, and where events would lead them. Why then had he not shown himself?

Hathaway sighed and closed his eyes. There could be only one reason, that Sparrow believed, as Hathaway was coming to suspect, that the only was the matter could be resolved for good was for the Governor, with the help of the navy, to convince all parties that Jack Sparrow alone knew the secret of controlling Jones and the Dutchman, and then, in full view of suitable witnesses, and without leaving room for doubt, to kill him.

Elizabeth had waited until they were at their hostess's house before she first complained of a slight headache, and even then she had made sure that Elanor was not within earshot when she did so. She first denied it was any account that she would be perfectly well after a glass of water, but as the last of the party was at the door she sought out Mrs. Collingwood and confessed that she felt quite unable to join the party. The lady was most understanding, having a daughter only just delivered of her first child, and when Elizabeth pleaded prettily that her sister should not lose this last chance of agreeable female company for many months on account of her own condition she patted her hand and assured her that there was no need of that. Mrs. Collingwood then led her across the room to where Elanor was sitting quietly on a sofa listening to the chatter of two young matron's about the wonders of their children and explained that Elizabeth was not well enough to accompany them but that Mrs. Norrington need have no fears in remaining in the party, for she would have her own maid accompany her sister back to the inn and see her settled comfortably. It would be some time, she said, before Mrs. Norrington would get the opportunity for the company of ladies again and she would consider herself failing as a hostess and a friend if she did not to everything in her power to make it possible for her to enjoy this last excursion

Elanor swore long and hard in the privacy of her own head but there was little she could do without giving offence and attracting an attention that she needed to avoid, so she simply thanked Mrs. Collingwood for her consideration and remarked calmly that as her husband had business that would keep him at the inn all day Elizabeth would be safely chaperoned in her absence. Elizabeth was careful not to betray her satisfaction and Elanor said all that was proper and so the matter passed of as of no importance in the minds of the other women present, but the look Elanor gave Elizabeth as she took her place in the carriage showed very clearly her understanding of what was taking place. Everyone else was busy with the bustle of taking seats and settling skirts and parasols so it went un-remarked by anyone else, but there was something about that steady look that set Elizabeth's heart racing and turned her mouth desert dry. To her surprise she found herself suddenly wondering if she really wanted to know this secret and hoping that Jack would stand between her and the lady captain should she decide to take issue with Elizabeth's behaviour.

Elizabeth watched the carriages leave before turning back to the house where Mary, Mrs. Collingwood's maid was waiting for her. Back at the inn Jack would be about whatever it was he did when he was alone, and it came as something of a shock to realize that she did not know what that was. What did he do when he was alone? Drink? Visit whores? Play cards? She had no idea. But whatever it was she was going to interrupt it, this was her one chance and she must take it. But as she settled herself into the pony trap that would take them back to the inn do she realised that she was no longer sure that she knew how to extract the information she sought, she was no longer certain that rum would be enough to get Jack to supply her leverage.

As the trap rattled down the dusty road to town she found herself thinking back over her acquaintance with Jack Sparrow, and the sum of it told a tale of a man of contradictions, a wobbly legged pirate on the surface but a smart man when it counted. Memory led her back to the day they first found the chest, to Jack saying that he told the truth quite a lot but that no one believed him. How much truth had he told her this time, and how much of it had she not believed. She remembered Elanor's parting look and admitted that it had shaken her, and frightened her too. Whatever Elanor Cavendish's secret was the lady herself was far from safe, she knew that now, and for the first time since they had appeared in her cottage she wondered just how dangerous were the waters these two were sailing.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22 Things better left unsaid**

"There is no other way Elizabeth." He raised a placatory hand before she could speak, "Not sayin' that it is the most satisfactory of circumstances, but this is the best that there is. Or at least the best that can be done as matters stand."  
"The best that can be done," she said bitterly. "That the pair of you sail away and leave me alone, without friends or family."

Jack sighed,  
"Well what would you have us do luv? Given that you cannot follow William and he cannot return for nigh on ten years. What would you want for us to be doing? Stay here and play at families? For how long? Eh? How long would be enough? Next week? Next month, next year? What would change in that time?" His tome became more emphatic, "I can't bring you Will," He smiled a rueful smile, "which is what we both know that you really want; nor yet your late and lamentable," he caught her suddenly outraged look and corrected himself with a shake, "I mean…. lamented father."  
The outrage in her face was replaced for a moment by suspicion, then that too faded as Elizabeth put the heel of her hand against her forehead as if trying to press away a threatened headache,  
"I know that," she said slowly, "I know that Will cannot be here when his child is born, but you are my last link to him so why must you go so soon? Could you not wait until then?"  
He looked at her with exaggerated patience,  
"No luv, would not be proper and besides me doin' so might cause young William to wonder, should he learn of it."  
He saw the shadow of guilt pass across her face and knew that another of his assumptions about those days between the Kraken and the Locker had been correct, but he ignored the look and went on blandly,  
"He is somewhat given to jumping to conclusions where meself is concerned and I'd not want to set him on Jones path," his tone became severe, "no more would you. Though why he should doubt me is beyond my comprehension for I've never given him cause."  
The guilt in her face intensified but he went on ignoring it as if he hadn't seen,  
"Anyways I've told you that I have urgent business to be about."

That banished the guilt and set her face in stiff and angry lines, when she spoke her voice was imperious and for a moment a flash of the woman in the pirates dress surfaced from wherever grief and guilt and incipient motherhood had banished it,  
"So you have, but you have carefully avoided what that business is. What is that can be so important?"  
His smile faded and his mouth thinned,  
"Something 'tis better you know nothing about. But I must be about…" he flapped an aimless hand, for a moment the pirate she had thought she knew, " …. doing it, and besides each day brings the risk of disclosure, not only for me but for you too. If the safety of Elanor and I are of no concern to you then perhaps your child and your own future should be."

Elizabeth swallowed hard, fighting back tears that she was determined not to shed.  
"But you leave me with nothing, with no one, Jack. I've lost everything and yet you would leave me more alone than I was before you strolled back into my life. At least then I had Estrella, now there is no one at all!"  
She didn't mention his father's involvement for some instinct warned her that it would not improve the chances of him remaining here. She did not know what it was between Jack and his father but any room that held them both was an uncomfortable place to be.  
She saw him frown slightly but he came closer and laid his hands upon her shoulders, the pirate fading away again and leaving behind a man who was both familiar and unfamiliar.  
"We explained that to you." His tone was earnest, "Would you have her run the risks that we do Elizabeth? We have no choice in the matter, would you place her in that position?" He smiled again; softly, kindly but with authority, suddenly all Jonathon, her brother in law, captain and head of the family. He let her go, patting her shoulder in a gesture of dismissal or reassurance, she wasn't sure which.  
"But you are no more alone than you were then for you will have Rebecca to keep you company, and you will not be friendless for long, now will you? Soon you will have a child and the new interests and acquaintances that will follow from that. Friends will come quickly enough, and they will be those who know you only as a young wife and mother."  
He lowered his voice even though they were alone,  
"The more people who think of you in that light the less likely it becomes that anyone one else will think of you in any other way, and so you will be able to escape your past. That is your only safety Elizabeth, be in no doubt of that and be thankful that there is any safety at all. Many people are not granted that much."  
She frowned at him for a long moment but his expression remained serious, even earnest, and his eyes stayed fixed on hers; in the face of that look she finally sighed,  
"You are beginning to sound like Elanor. You still insist that matters are that dangerous?"  
"I do"  
There was silence for a moment longer as she wondered where to go from here. Jack had warned that he spoke the truth more often than others believed, was this one of those occasions? She wished she could be sure. But she couldn't and so then she turned away from him with a toss of her head,  
"I'm not sure that I believe you."

Jack watched her, reading what was going on inside her head more easily than she might have found comfortable. Her tone was defiant and a hint of the same expression that she had worn the day she told him that the Kraken was only looking for him slid across her face. He saw it and knew what it meant. Echoing her sigh he turned away from her, and crossed the room to pick up the paper from the table by the window before facing her again. The expression he thought of as her angry mule look was still firmly in place, and he wondered if he should tell her more, though Elanor had been of the opinion that it would not be a sensible thing to do, a sentiment he found himself in full accord with. So he smiled his most charming smile instead,  
"Luv, trust me on this, I'd tell you more if it were safe to do so but it is not. Just think on this, that which is known cannot be unknown, and there are many who will seek to know better about that … which has become known and that….. should not have been…. known. You are a part of that knowing, a dangerous part for your good self and for everyone. Better that you are believed dead, better that you make a new life for yourself and your child, one truly separate from your old one."  
He cast a sideways look at her and, seeing the mulish look still on her face, gestured towards her with the parchment.  
"This should make you believe me. Would I go to this trouble if it were not needed?"

Elizabeth glared at the paper her held out to her  
"A sop to leaving me alone," she said scornfully, "to soothe Elanor's conscience I expect, for it can't be for yours."  
That seemed to take him aback for a moment before he drew himself up to his full height and gave her a long hard look, not one she was accustomed to seeing when he looked at her,  
"This gives you a home and a future Elizabeth, it will provide for you and your child and cloak you in respectability." His tone was harsh, "It gives back to you nearly all that Beckett took from you,"  
A sudden picture surged up from the greyness of those imprisoned memories, the ones he tried so hard to forget, an image of her trying to throw a rope to her father as they stood on the deck of Pearl and he felt a sudden sadness; his shoulders slumped and his voice became soft and quiet again,  
"At least as much as can be given back.  
She stared at him in silence, saw the sadness flit across his face and realised that he was not going to change his mind. A feeling of desperation took hold of her as she saw her chance of keeping hold of this last link to the past and to Will slipping away from her,  
"But not my father and not Will, "she said softly, "not Will, not my husband, not my child's father. It doesn't give me back the man I love."  
The sadness crossed his face again, quickly followed by a ghost of something that might have been sympathy but that might also be read as pity,  
"I can't do that Elizabeth and you know full well why, you saw it for yourself."

He sounded suddenly tired and his eyes flicked away from hers; she had a sudden certainty that he felt sorry for her, even as he planned his leaving, and the memory of how close she had come to pleading turned her blood hot, fuelling an anger that pushed her beyond restraint. In that instant she forgot what Jack had done for her in the past, only aware of what he was planning to do now, and her anger at that, at not being able to move him, combined with the gnawing fear to drive sense and memory and caution away. Words came from somewhere deep within her desperation, words she knew to be unkind and better not said even as she spoke them, but it was as if someone else took over her tongue. She squared her shoulders and tilted up her chin; the look she cast in his direction was disdainful and her voice hardened, though some deep seated instinct kept it low,  
"So you say, though I can see no reason why it must be the same for I have no intention of breaking faith with the man I love. But then what would you know of love? You, who buy a mockery of affection with silver, well, when you cannot steal it that is." Her voice took on a angry and taunting note, "Does Elanor know how despicable you are, does she know of your habits? I think not, perhaps I should tell her since she seems to intend to remain with you, for the moment at least. Does she think you have something to offer her that you do not? Or perhaps I mistake her and she like you and does not care. Will told me you know, about Tortuga and the women who slapped your face. It was clear what kind of women they were, and the only reason they could care enough to slap you would be because you had cheated them. For I doubt they would care if you were hanged if you had paid them what was due for their services! Provided there was another man with coin to pay for their company that is. Any man, for you are hardly so singular that they would mourn your loss."

The sympathy that had been in his face just a moment or two before died away, and something in his expression turned cold and harsh. That look set a part of her mind screaming 'stop' but it was ignored as every feeling and grateful memory was lost to the rising tide of panic. The pressure of it drove her on, desperate to strike some reaction from him that she might use to change his mind. Her breathing was fast and shallow, the words hurrying passed her tongue in a sibilant hiss,  
"What would you know of how I feel? With all the people I loved lost to me? To go on loving and yet to be unable to hold or help or comfort the one you love. To know that your child will be half grown before it meets its' father, that it only you will see that child start to walk and talk, only you be there to dry its' tears and hold it when it is afraid. To bring it into the world knowing that the other parent it should love may not even know that it exists!"  
She threw him a look as contemptuous as the one she had given him that first day on the dock side,  
"I was foolish to think that you might understand. How could you when the only person you have ever loved is yourself?"

Later she knew that she would not have stopped even then, but he came and stood close to her, hands clenched into fists and his eyes pools of frozen black water. The words died on her tongue as she stared back at him in defiance, as if willing him to turn pirate again and do his worst.

For a moment there was silence as he stared at her before his expression changed, the rare fury that had been there fading to something that was unusually blank and set, a look as flat and hard as the one he had cast her on the shore of the locker, though without the fear and confusion. That look chilled the hot wash of panic to ice, causing her to draw a deep breath, her hands also clenching into fists at her side, though she knew that if he was of a mind to hurt her there would be nothing she could do to stop him.

He went on staring at her in silence and the rest of the world retreated a long way away, leaving the pair of them alone in this bubble of almost unbearable tension. She swallowed hard on a throat suddenly dry and tight, arms coming up to cross over her belly, wishing for a sword as the moments stretched and she waited for the blow to come, wondering where he would strike her, hoping it would be her face.

But he made no further move, and after a moment more of silence he slowly unclenched his hands and drew a deep breath, then he took half a pace back before he spoke to her. His words were totally unexpected,  
"Mrs Turner, I fear that you forget yourself," he said softly, his tone expressionless as his face.  
He turned away from her again, crossing to the table and placing the paper he still held in his hand carefully down on the polished surface. After a moment more of silence he spoke again, still staring at the table, his voice cold and clipped and impeccably polite,  
"But then I think that you are unwell, understandable enough given your situation I expect. I regret I can be of no assistance to you in your ailment and so, as Elanor is elsewhere, I will fetch a maid to tend to you."  
Elizabeth gaped at him in astonishment, for whatever she had been expecting it was not that, or even this man, for at that moment it could have been James speaking. He didn't look at her as he crossed the room and opened the door, and he pulled it softly closed behind him, without a further word.  
***

"What be he abaat then, Maaam. Why do ya let him tarry here so long when there are other things tat must be done?"  
Calypso's spurt of irritation sent the surf flying in all directions as it strove to meet the high water mark. They had been dallying here too long for her liking, but, though she could have abandoned this hated form and left the Lady to her business, some inner prompting made her stay, watching as the fragile humans danced their complicated measures.

The Lady regarded Calypso with the usual enigmatic silence but the sea goddess still received the impression that her companion was content enough with matters as they were. Since the white ship had dropped anchor the Lady had bided her time with her usual patience, spreading her fan on occasion to view the pictures painted there, smiling at what it seemed she saw. Though once Calypso had thought she felt a shiver of unease from her companion and had wondered at it, though it mirrored her own. Not for the first time Calypso wondered what the full sum of the Lady's interests were; for she had made no movement to prevent Jack Sparrow playing nursemaid to this waif who had been pirate king, though it was far from clear why the girl should be of any importance either to him or to the Lady.

One thing the sea goddess was sure of was that Elizabeth Swann was no more loved by the Lady than Barbossa had been.

Pirate king! She smiled a sly smile as she watched Jack Sparrow stalk from the room, and observed the look of shock on the face of the heavily pregnant woman she only just recognised as the girl who had come upriver to seek consolation and protection from her human self. That milk and water miss who had dared to think she could intrude on Calypso's world. Pirate king! She who could not chase the wind or read a cloud, she who could not list above a dozen of the creatures in the waters around her, she who had had the crown placed upon her head by Sparrow, a man dead at her own hand. She who would kill Calypso's own, and who would have drawn Jack Sparrow from his appointed role.

For a moment the memories of Tia Dalma took control and she remembered the guilt racked girl who had driven her to such desperate lengths, face cold and stiff in the candlelight, her voice barely able to speak the toast to the pirate who had saved her and whom she had slaughtered with such casual abandon.

How different it all would have been if she hadn't killed Jack Sparrow.

But the witch was fading fast, it was getting harder to assume her form and her memories were becoming hazy, and as those recollections of feelings past were shed so the old hatreds went with them. Not so many months ago she would have watched this girl sink below the waves, her child still unborn, and smiled. Only a year ago she would have drowned this whole coast to kill the usurper. But now it took an effort to recall the human fear and hatred of the past, and even the desire to recall them was fading. Even so she still resented Jack's attention to this lass and her coming child, resented their relationship to the half human man who now ferried souls for her too. More than that she feared what might happen should the captain of the Dutchman knew what waited for him on shore. Jones had been a bad mistake and she wondered if she would be allowed another one, another reason for rendering assistance to the Lady, for her power stretched beyond the mortal world. Her good will might count for much if things did not fall out as planned. Yet some instinct made her wonder if whatever was coming was beyond even the Lady's power to remedy, and what part she, herself, had played in calling it. She was not sure that her plans might already be going astray, for there was an unease about the seas and the winds that even she couldn't explain, a sense that there was trouble to come. It was as if some great storm was gathering, growing by the day, but one that had little to do with wind or water.

Something bad was coming and whatever it was flowed from the events surrounding the Black Pearl, the curse, and the killing of Jack Sparrow; events in which her own actions had played no small part.

On the shore the seas rose in an agitated surge as Calypso pushed that thought away and turned her attention to current events again. Elizabeth had collapsed onto a seat, her face white, hands shaking, and the goddess was taken with a sudden certainty that the storm was growing, feeding, even in the silence of this room. What more then could be done to avoid it? Jack Sparrow was doing what he did best, weaving plans and bending others to his wishes, and whatever the reason he had come here the Lady's captain had thought it worth the doing for she was here too. What was it that kept the pair of them, both born for the sea, on this tame and constricting land? How much was the Lady's captain a factor in the growing storm?

She felt the Lady's question and turned back towards her companion,  
"She rile Jack, and he's a hard man to move to anger, such foolish things to say when she needs his friendship. Yet I would have said that she learned to bide her tongue better than this, so what is she about? And he, why does he linger so when there is things of more profit to be doing? Someting be wrong, we both know it. Maybe it's connected, maybe it's nat, but there is no reason for him to be lingerin' here. The sooner Jack Sparra sets about his task the better."  
She cast the Lady a thoughtful look,  
"But then perhaps this Elizabeth is a part of it. A part that needs a resolvin' if the storm is to be avoided?"

She got no answer, but then she had not expected to.

The morning had proved to be disappointing, the skies heavy with a threatened storm, the wind skittish as if it couldn't decide from which direction to come. The leaves on the palms circled like windmills, while the dust shifted restlessly in the alleys. On the dockside the whores cursed as the dust settled on their face paint and tried to smooth their skirts, no point in showing for free what men would pay to see, while the women on their way to market tied their hats on tight. Hathaway forsook both hat and wig, and dressed in a plain coat and boots he made his way to the small room where their visitor sat regretting the evening, and wondering what he had said. As Hathaway entered, grim faced and impatient, he knew he was about to find out.

The navy man took a seat and stared at the man opposite with a frown,  
"You say that Sparrow survived the fight with Jones, but that you don't know what happened to him, nor to the chest or the woman." The words were even enough but there was a glitter in his eyes that warned his companion that his temper was stretched thin.  
"True enough, on my word." The man answered promptly.  
Hathaway leaned back in the chair and regarded him without expression,  
"Your word is a commodity of somewhat dubious value. You deserted your post and abandoned your comrades." Hathaway drew a sheet of paper from inside his coat, "last night you were heard to say that despite your claims to the contrary you did know who the woman was, that James Norrington had known who she was, and that she had been on the Dutchman before."

The man opposite struggled to see though the haze that covered much of the previous evening, cursing himself for being careless, for not seeing the pitfalls. He might have said something of the sort he supposed, might have said a lot of other things too, no way of being sure; so with the instinct of a true survivor, and a greedy one at that, he hedged;  
"Maybe I did, would make it a better tale yer see, and the better the tale the more rum and ale 'tis likely to bring me way. But it's true there were rumours that a woman had been taken along with the crew of a junk taken in the China sea, and that she were named their captain and that the Admiral knew her and offered her his quarters. Would not be ought to be astonished of in that, for he were a man after all, for all the starch and gold braid. But I told you the truth that I did not know her, nor could I say that she were the same one."

Hathaway knew he would get no change to that reply and so he switched tack;  
"You were also heard to remark that though Sparrow was on the Dutchman there was another pirate captain at the helm of the Black Pearl."  
` "Well I can't be sure but he looked to be one," the man protested, "had this hat with feathers in it ya see, and a fancy coat like Sparrow. All wet and bedraggled o'course, but then we all were. But I've no knowledge of who he were."  
Outside the wind had become even more bad tempered and rain suddenly spattered against the windows with the force of hurled pebbles, this was not the yet the time for such storms but it appeared one had decided to arrive in good time for the season. The man opposite him cast a fearful glance towards the leaden sky as if a sudden superstitious fear had taken hold of him,  
"Never forget that storm," he muttered, "not as long as I live. Were like naught I'd ever seen or wish to see again. But sometimes it seems as if the world ain't been right since. I mean, no ways that Sparrow should have been able to get off that ship, no ways it should have been able to sink then come back like that. Beckett messed with things better left alone and it's no more than God honest truth that I can't be sure that anything I saw that day were real."

Hathaway let his posture ease and nodded as if he accepted that, but his mind was racing, for the description of the other pirate given a moment ago fitted well with what Groves had said of the man who had been sighted on the Pearl when Sparrow was handed to Beckett. However it also fitted the descriptions of the pirate who had taken Elizabeth Swann hostage, the event that had set off this whole sorry chain of events, and that he could not doubt for it was recorded in James Norrington's log; something very more reliable than the drunken rambling of a trapped and frightened man. But the little he and Groves had learned in Tortuga suggested that a man of similar description to the one Commodore Norrington described had been on the Black Pearl when she first arrived, and that same man had taken her leaving Sparrow behind, only to return a few days later seeking him once again. It seemed to be unlikely that two men of almost identical descriptions were involved in these matters, Hathaway knew the power of co-incidence better than most but he was not of a mind to consider that to be the explanation this time.

But the man who had taken Elizabeth Swann at the time of the raid on Port Royale had been Hector Barbossa, or so James Norrington's records recorded, and he was most certainly dead according to that same log. Both Miss Swann and Norrington had reported Barbossa dead, killed by Sparrow in defence of Miss Swann and Mr Turner, though they had not brought the body back instead leaving it his to the sea and its inhabitants. Even if by some impossibly unlikely chance they were wrong and he had not died of Sparrow's shot there had been no ship or crew to return for him, and without food or water he would not have survived for very long. Either way Hector Barbossa had died on that island that couldn't be found, and no ever had found it again, and so there was no rational way that he could be the one stealing the Black Pearl or seeking Sparrow.

Yet Hathaway found that, however irrational it might be, he had no doubt that Barbossa was indeed the man who had been seen tipping Mercer into the sea, and that he had been the one who had abandoned Sparrow in Tortuga and then come looking for him again.

But if that was the case then the impiously impossible had indeed happened, and not once but twice, and they had two men back from the dead. It also suggested that Elizabeth Swann had been seen with both of them, and had apparently known them both before and after their deaths.

'And', he wondered with a frown, 'what was he to make of that?'

From outside the window came the sounds of a coach arriving, the clatter of hooves on the cobbles and the scrape of boots as grooms hurried to the horse's heads. Elizabeth heard them, noted them in some part of her mind, and then ignored them, for the sounds of the world outside seemed to have no meaning in this room, not any more. She felt the child move in agitation and staggered slowly to the window seat, one hand going to her belly, the other coming to cover her mouth as the horror of what she had said and done came home to her. Why was it that close contact with Jack Sparrow seemed to bring out the worst in her? Usually with dire consequences, and certainly that was the case this time.

He was gone and he wouldn't be coming back, no doubt he was already giving instructions to the servants to pack. She no longer had two days, not now. When Elanor returned this afternoon he would persuade her that they needed to be gone immediately, and after the look she had received from the lady that morning Elizabeth could not believe that her pretend sister would object.

It had all gone so terribly wrong, from the moment she had come through the door, the bottle of rum hidden in the folds of her skirts, Jack had not behaved as she thought he must. The man she had accosted in this room had even looked unfamiliar, and his behaviour had not been that of the pirate that she thought that she knew. To prove it the bottle of rum still sat untouched upon the window ledge.

When she arrived he had not been alone and she had learned with some shock that he had spent the morning, not at cards or whoring, as she half expected, but in earnest consultations with a lawyer. This was a serious faced, professional man who had seemed to know Jack better than a single visit would have allowed, and who had smiled kindly at her, wished her well and congratulated her on her good fortune before he had left. Jack had followed him to the door, and the man had had taken his offered hand and bidden him farewell and god speed with the utmost respect.

Maybe that should have warned her. Maybe there had been signs there, in that room, in that farewell, to be read, but she had not seen them, and instead she had assumed that the encounter with the sober man of law would have made Jack more amenable to the offer of rum and relaxation. In that she had been wrong, it had not been Jack Sparrow the pirate she had joined in the coffee room but Jonathon Norrington, brother in law and responsible head of the family; a difference she had not fully understood or appreciated.

Looking back now she could see that the whole tone of Jack's behaviour in their time here had doomed her plans. He had not been the man she thought he was and though she had been surprised at the degree to which he had immersed himself in his role she had not thought much about what that immersion might mean for her planned encounter. Only now, as she huddled in the window seat, did it occur to her how faultless his performance had been, not a drunken night or a pursued maid servant since they arrived. It would seem that he could behave with regard for the proprieties if he had to, if his life depended upon it, another thing she had not factored into her plans. Maybe he had come to believe in his alter ego, at least for a little while; maybe he had needed to. Whatever the reason he had not changed persona when the lawyer left, and while he had taken the offered bottle with a faint but charming smile, he had put it to one side then helped her to a chair and asked her if she wanted tea, ringing the bell before she had a chance to answer. She had near fainted from the shock but still had not doubted that he would revert to himself as soon as the tea was served and the maid had gone.

But he had not done any such thing and before she could do more than deny any desire for tea he had presented her with the paper that he and the lawyer had spent the morning on, with a flourish. She had seen such deeds before and had known what was coming even before he spoke,  
"This is title to a small estate ten miles or so from here, it is in William's name of course as is proper and expected." He produced another similar paper from his pocket, "This one establishes a trust for the child, it will pay an income of some two hundred pounds or so a year, but it should be enough to support the child should anything happen to you before William returns."  
There was a scratching at the door and he rose and went to the window as the maid entered with a tray.  
"I've inspected the property myself," he went on over the clatter of cups being set on the table, "and it is good land with plentiful water. It will support livestock or grain, and the buildings are of a good size and in a fair state of repair. It will be plenty big enough for yourself and the child when it is of an age to travel. Until then I suggest you remain here.  
He tapped the paper with a long finger, a very clean finger some part of her noted,  
"Most of the road is in reasonable repair, though I'd recommend that you settle here in town for the worst of the winter."  
Tea set the maid picked up the tray and curtseyed to him, he in his turn smiled kindly but distantly at her, for all the world as if her shapely figure and well turned ankle were of no interest to him. As she opened the door he crossed and picked up a cup,  
"l have requested Mr Edwards to find you an estate manager to take charge of matters of business until William can return."

A vision of Jack riding out with a man of business to inspect some farmstead, and discussing the finding of staff with a lawyer, for all the world like he was a respectable family man, would have made her laugh had she not been so angry. His play acting was perfection itself but they were alone and to Elizabeth's ear every word he spoke made it clear that he felt his duty to her done, as if she and her child were some unpleasant task that must be completed before he could return to the real business of his life. She had protested as she took his cup and poured the tea, but he had simply turned away to place the deed upon the table and gone to stand at the window. His posture seemed to say to her that he already wanted to be anywhere but there, with her. She had swallowed that, though the anger had already started to simmer, and smiled as she poured her own tea, saying calmly that his mood would improve for a tot of rum.  
"Nothing to do with my mood Elizabeth, but matters run on and must be addressed. I would be failing William and the Commodore if I did not see you and his child provided for."  
That set the anger burning hotter, for had she not fought beside him as well and as often as Will? Was she not ever bit as much of a comrade in arms as they? More so than James, for he had made his unflattering view of Captain Sparrow quite clear to everyone around him.  
"So it's nothing to do with me and what I need, it is for Will and James? Why? Will would have taken your ship and left you to rot, and James would have hung you!" She had tried to keep the acid from her voice but knew she had no succeeded,  
"And you would have watched while he did it." He replied softly his eyes still fixed on the scene outside.

She gasped at that, for this was a matter that had never been mentioned between them, along with many others, but she had thought he had understood. He turned towards her, his eyes widening as if he had shocked himself,  
"My apologies, time and tide, I know, and all that is behind us. You did only what was right by you."  
It had been slipping away though, she knew it then but had been unable to bring their discussion back to the place she needed it to be. She had tried to tempt him with rum once again but all that had done was bring a knowing, yet tolerant, look to his face that somehow made her feel foolish, 'after all' she found herself thinking 'how many others have thought to better him via rum.' So she had put the rum aside and tried again to make him understand how bereft she felt, but he had seemed as impervious as stone and her frustration had grown. Even so she had never intended to say the things that she had said, would swear that she had never thought them before the moment they issued from her mouth, and now could not believe that she had said them. Whatever else Jack was he had never dealt with her harshly, not even when he had her in his power and at a disadvantage, and he had not deserved what she had said to him.

Elizabeth stared outside without seeing the world beyond the window, her mind locked in her words and the past. She was so far from reality that she didn't hear the door open, didn't hear steps crossing the room or feel herself being watched; she only realised she was no longer alone when a hand fell upon her shoulder, its' warmth at odds with the cold that had taken hold of her. In silent misery she looked up into Elanor's calm face, blind even to the hint of sympathy there.

A trail of velvet was laid across her knees,  
"Your wrap sister, I think a walk would do you good; for Jonathon is right and your mood is obviously blue. Besides the weather is pleasant, and a little privacy would not come amiss for we have much to talk about."


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23**

Much to her surprise Elanor had quite enjoyed the excursion up the coast; for though she had little in common with her companions, in either experience or expectation, she still found much in them to respect and their conversations were a window onto a world that she found fascinating, even though she had no ambition to share it. Though she would have enjoyed it even more if some part of her mind had not been taken up with wondering how Jack was coping with Elizabeth's planned offensive.  
'Jack is a pirate' she kept reminding herself, 'good enough at the core, at least I think so, but still a hard edged man who has stayed alive against all the odds for a considerable number of years, even if he does seem strangely lacking in bloodlust or viciousness.' Or at least he did given what she had thought she knew of pirates. But then history was always written by the victors and in her world piracy had been defeated by the law, 'at least in this time period' she thought ruefully.

For all that it had to be admitted that Jack had been surprisingly indulgent towards the governor's daughter from the moment he first met her, from before he met her in come to that, even allowing for his easy going nature; though Elanor wasn't always sure that his forgiveness of the girl's sins against him was as complete and ungrudging as he made it seem. All her training and experience told her that no human forgives such a thing so completely or so easily. Not even when in love, and anyway Jack showed no sign of being in love with the young Mrs Turner that she could see. No, somewhere under that easy smile and expansive gestures a host of negative feelings about her murder of him, and his life in general, must linger; unless he had angelic blood that was, which seemed somewhat unlikely given his general approach to living. But it was hard to see past the shimmer and shine to what Jack was really thinking and feeling sometimes, which was what he wanted after all, and so she couldn't quite decide what his real attitude to the girl was. One thing she was sure of was that he intended to get the heart of the Dutchman's captain away from his wife as soon as could be managed without suspicion.

As things fell out she had less time to wonder about what was happening back at the inn than she might have expected, for half way to their destination, just as the sun's heat was making the use of a fan a necessity rather than an affectation, one of the horses threw a shoe. Piling into the other two coaches would have been uncomfortable so it was decided they would proceed more slowly with three horses. But the lame horse had to be freed from the traces first, and as they waited by the side of the road the youngest Miss Waters, a pretty but inconsequential girl of about seventeen, unwisely picked a flower because it matched her hat ribbon, only to be bitten or stung by some member of the local wildlife that objected to the action, or, Elanor thought privately, to the hat itself. Either way the girl's cries were enough to scare the horses, as well as frighten away every insect within a mile, and for a while it seemed touch and go whether they were treated to a full blown attack of hysterics. In the end, the occupants of all three coaches sought shelter in the shade of a patch of palms with one of the hampers, a glass of wine from which finally managed to calm the agitated Miss Waters. But the incident had caused many of the other ladies to inspect the ground they trod on, and the stones they sat on, with unusual vigilance. Particularly when Miss Waters's arm turned red and the area around bite or sting began to swell. Suddenly a picnic to commune with nature seemed less attractive than it had in the safety of the drawing room.

"I'm not sure that we should continue today," Mrs. Cartwright said as she patted the tearful girl's hand. "Both a thrown shoe and poor Miss Waters plight seems to suggest that we would be wise to postpone our outing for another day."  
She looked towards Elanor,  
"I am sorry my dear but we have already lost so much time, and poor Miss Waters will not be able to go on I suspect. It seems a pity when you must leave so soon but…."

Elanor smiled as the words faded away, trying to slip into the role she still found so difficult when Jack was not there to ride to the rescue if it went wrong"I quite understand ma'am. It is better not to take chances with such things, Jonathon is always saying so and he has seen many places where insects are a constant danger. I am disappointed of course, but I would not want my pleasure to be at any ones' discomfort or injury. We hope to return to this coast as soon as Jonathon's business in the east is concluded and I hope it will be so for I shall sorely miss my sister, and not being able to support to her at her time of need is a great sadness to me. But my place is with my husband. Perhaps we can make the visit when Jonathon and I return."

Mrs. Cartwright smiled and transferred her patting to Elanor's hand,  
"Indeed we will my dear. It is a pity you must leave so soon, but if your husband wishes you to travel with him then you must do so of course. We will all take good care of your sister, you need not worry about leaving her for she will not be friendless I assure you."  
Elanor inclined her head in thanks,  
"I did not think she would be for there can be no doubt of your kindness. Even so I could wish that William could be here for Elizabeth at this time, but a man must make his way while he can, all the more so when he has a family relying upon him.  
Mrs. Cartwright sighed and nodded, her eldest daughter had removed more than a hundred miles away with her husband the previous September,  
"That he must, I said as much to Lucy when she protested at going so far from all her kin. If the chance comes it must be seized, for the world can be a hard place and security for one's children must come before such concerns."  
"Most certainly, Jonathon said much the same to Elizabeth when William was offered this captaincy. To get such opportunity at his age is a benefit to be grasped with both hands, and, though he may be away several years if all goes to plan, it will do much to establish their fortunes for the future. Jonathon has settled a sufficient income on her to assist while William is away but in the end it is for Will to provide for his family."

Mrs. Wellings, sitting to Mrs. Cartwright's left nodded at that,  
"She is most fortunate that her brother in law is willing to do so much, I have known families where that was not the case."  
Elanor smiled, hoping they wouldn't read that smile too accurately,  
"Jonathon is kindness itself, I cannot tell you how generous he is for he does not like it talked of, but he would not see any kin of mine go without the comforts of life. We are alone in the world my sister and I, and he knows how that worries me. It was in some part his doing that found William this place, and while he was quick to see the benefits of it he would not want Elizabeth to suffer. It unfortunate she fell with child so quickly perhaps, though she does not see it so, and nor I confess do I."  
The other woman nodded gravely,  
"Well, a first confinement is always worrying, even frightening, and to be alone will make it harder, but, as Mrs. Cartwright has said, we will take good care of her, and once the child is born she will soon forget her fears."

Elanor smiled in gratitude,  
"Thank you. Elizabeth finds it so hard to be without William, they have loved each other forever, though she has had better connected suitors. Father was only persuaded to allow the marriage by the steadfastness of their attachment, for it seemed clear that another union would make her unhappy. It was a grief to us all that he died so suddenly, and only days after giving her away, so unlooked for, our father was a healthy man as well as a good one. I have Jonathon to comfort me, but father's death makes it so much the harder for my sister as she must grieve for him as well as William's loss. She cannot talk of her wedding day at all for it is too painful, it being the last time she saw our father, and she finds talking of her marriage hard, knowing her husband cannot return for such a time, I ask that you forgive her if she seems unwilling to mention him."  
That got her hand patted again,  
"We quite understand my dear, she is young and love must seem to be more important than the more mundane things of life." She sighed, "but even age doesn't make it easy; I recall that when Mary Collier lost her husband to a flux it was more than a year before she could mention his name in company for fear of the hysterics."  
"It was," said Mrs. Cartwright, "and it was nigh on two years before she could talk of things they had done together, and three before she could bring herself to dispose of his pipe and slippers."

Conversation drifted to other things then, and within half an hour they were on the road and heading back towards the town.

As the carriage rattled slowly down the dusty road Elanor congratulated herself that the day had been turned to such good account. She might not have got to see the promised gardens and their waterfall but she had strengthened Elizabeth's foundations amongst these people, which had after all been the purpose in her coming here with Jack. She looked out at the heavy sky suddenly dark and threatening, better that they were returning now for Elizabeth was sure to try every power of persuasion at her disposal and she dearly wanted to know exactly how Jack was coping.

XXX

The inn had been quiet when the ladies said their farewells and left her at the door, the bustle of the morning over and the preparations of the evening not yet begun. Elanor was glad to get into the shade and determined to wash the dust from her face before she saw anyone and so she quickly climbed the stairs and headed to their rooms. The dining parlour was deserted and she threw her parasol onto the table and opened the door to the bedroom room, pulling off her hat with a sigh of relief; a feeling that didn't last more than a couple of breaths.

Elanor saw the chest sitting on the bed before she saw Jack, and knew immediately that something was badly wrong; for he had been careful to make sure it was never within open sight since the moment he had taken it from Elizabeth. Just how wrong things were was immediately confirmed, for, as she opened the door a little wider and slid into the room, she saw Jack standing beside the bed, very still and with a deep frown pulling at his brow, staring intently at the chest in front of him as if he could see through the wood to the human heart within it. The pistol in his hand was not leveled but it was clear what he intended to do with it. She drew a deep breath, wondering just what had happened in her absence. Whatever it was the ramifications were serious by the look on Jack's face, and even as she watched he leveled the pistol and moved his thumb into position to cock it. She let her hat fall to the floor and drew a deep breath, wondering how to handle the situation given that it wasn't really any of her business. Elizabeth must have said or done something exceptional to bring him to this, knowing that nothing else would have moved him to consider such drastic action. Or rather hoping that it would prove to have been truly bad, for she would have said that Jack was not easily moved to cruelty or vindictiveness and would hate to be proved so wrong. If she had misjudged him to this degree then she might well need to reconsider her own plans.

At that moment Jack became aware of her and looked in her direction, eyes dark and angry and the muscles of his usually mobile face so stiff that they must ache.

"Think a bullet has the same effect as stabbin' it?" he asked coldly, "or does that just cause the owner to die."  
Elanor gave that a moment of thought,"Can't say that I've considered it, but I suppose it depends on the fine print."  
She picked up the fallen hat and crossed the room to sit on the other side of the bed. The hat she carefully sat on top of the chest before looked at him across the lace draped wooden box, her face as calmly unconcerned as she could make it,  
"Do you want him to die? You chose to save him when he was dying, so what has changed your mind? Assuming that something has changed it that is, and that the question isn't just for hypothetical musing. A conversational gambit perhaps, but then I didn't think we were so short of puzzles to talk about."

"He would have taken my ship," Jack growled, "and left me in the locker."  
"So you told me, so that's not news to you. It didn't matter before so why does it matter now?"  
"It doesn't, he was a pirate by that point whether he believed it or not, can't be surprised that would take what he wanted if he thought he could get away with it."  
"Really?" she looked down at the pistol in his hand, "So the pistol and the question are unconnected are they?"  
"Maybe." He said with asperity, but his eyes stayed cold and distant, dominating his face in a way that drowned out his more usual look of good humoured tolerance of the world.

"But not unconnected with Elizabeth." Elanor made it a statement not a question.  
A deep weariness seemed to sweep over him, replacing the harder look of just a moment before.  
"Suppose so," he sighed, "I know her for what she is, so why am I surprised when she shows it?"  
"And what is she?"  
"Pirate. That is to say, she takes what she thinks she wants with little thought for the consequences."  
"Like you?" she asked softly.  
"Aye like me, peas in a pod we are."  
"So why the surprise?"  
He shrugged as if it was too much effort,  
"Don't rightly know."  
Jack looked down at the pistol still sitting comfortably in his hand and gave another deep sigh, and then he looked up towards the ceiling as if seeking the answer there. A small movement of his hand and the pistol vanished to some unseen place, the lace on his wrist bands hiding even the hint of its' going.

"What did she say Jack?" She kept her voice expressionless,  
"Nothing that matters."  
Elanor looked at the chest for a moment then towards his now empty hand and raised her brows.  
Jack didn't need her to speak the words he could read them in her eyes. His mouth tightened in annoyance at himself,  
"Alright! Maybe it matters a little." He hissed, "Though I'd be pushed to tell you why, for I told her meself that there was little truth in the romantic stories."  
"You just didn't want her to believe you."  
"Maybe, I don't rightly know what I meant any more," he straightened and tipping back his head he looked down the length of his nose at her, "after all I've died since then, can't expect a man returned from the dead to recall every little detail of his previous life."  
"I suppose not," Elanor replied calmly.

He looked at her with narrowed eyes for a moment then glared again at the chest on the bed, his look could have been comical but she felt no desire to smile, for however much he playacted and postured something had caused Jack to come to this room to draw a pistol on an unarmed man, for threatening the heart of the Dutchman's captain could not be seen as anything else. But she had a feeling he wanted to tell her and so she waited in quiet patience while he stared at the chest with danger in his eyes.  
"He told her," the words seemed to escape from him without his knowledge, a look of surprise replaced the danger as he looked at her, quickly followed by a rueful look, "about Tortuga, about Giselle and Scarlett."

Elanor stared at him in confusion for a moment; surely a pirate couldn't be concerned because some young lady knew that he dallied with women of purchasable affection could he? No, Jack was pretty shameless where such things were concerned so there was more to it than that, but it remained to be seen if he would tell her what, and he probably wouldn't if he thought she really wanted to know, so she shrugged dismissively  
"So what? I doubt she was innocent of the existence of whores, however virtuous she might be herself. How long had her mother been dead? Ten years? I'd be surprised if her father denied himself the pleasures of the flesh for all that time and children notice these things. I expect she knew that Norrington did too, and she was ready to marry him, so it's not as if she can think badly of you because of it."  
Jack seemed hesitant about replying , which was unusual for him, and after a moment he gave one his shivering shrugs, the first she had seen since they came ashore, and flicked an explanatory hand,  
"Not that as such, but about them… slapping me." He glowered and the dangerous look came back to his face, "Took it upon herself to draw certain conclusions from that, either her or William." He cast another look of dislike in the direction of the chest then leaned forward to tap it with a disdainful finger. "I'm a pirate, William, dishonest, not arguing that I'm not, I'll take the fat purse of a merchant or beadle or a harbour master without a blink and not think more of it, take a ship and its cargo in the same spirit too, but that's different. Blacksmith like you should know that."

Jack turned stormy eyes back to Elanor, "she suggested I'd take me pleasures from a lass and not pay, that I'd take the bread from the mouth of a girl while I enjoyed her. 'Tis not so, I do what's right by them, and I've lost me purse to one of their kind a few times and never complained at it." He frowned in the direction of the chest again, "That she, the pampered get of a rich man should level such a claim at me is beyond comprehension, not when I've never given her any cause to assume I'd use any woman so."

Elanor knew that wasn't the full truth of it, but if that was where it had started, as it probably was, well…then she could guess where it had ended. She looked at him with a faint smile, noting the symmetrical face with it's high cheekbones and broad brow, the large dark eyes and well curved mouth, the long throat and elegant finger,  
"No", she said softly, "you always pay them, and that's why they slap you."  
Jack looked surprised,  
"Is it?" but there was something in his voice that told her it wasn't a thought that was new to him.  
"I expect so. Are you angry that he told her or because she believed him, or said that she did."  
"She believed!" The frown came back and suddenly the pistol was back in his hand, "said a lot of other things too, but they are not important,… well not very important."

The long barrel was leveled at the chest, whatever Elizabeth had said was not going to be easily smoothed away. Elanor watched the unwavering length of badly cast steel for a moment wondering how best to approach this, a pistol shot and a blood smear on the bed linen was not going to do much for keeping their secret, and Elizabeth where they wanted her, but telling Jack that wasn't going to work, not in his current mood. So what exactly had she said?

Elanor's mind worked furiously as she watched Jack, Elizabeth wanted them to stay and whatever had happened it was likely that Jack had said no; that he had told her something she didn't want to hear. The girl was unlikely to let it go and she didn't seem to be very good at seeing the other person's point of view so it was likely that she had tried to play her own need to take the trick and that Jack had trumped it by his need to be elsewhere. But Elizabeth was afraid, more than Jack understood, for he had not allowed for the fact that the girl was facing a situation that might yet cost her very life, and it must not be forgotten that in this world that was a very real possibility, and faced with doing it alone. Elanor felt a spurt of shame as she realised that perhaps she had not given enough weight to the dangers Elizabeth face in childbirth. So it was not surprising if young Mrs. Turner was feeling desperate and alone. But it was the alone she would stress for she would not be willing to show Jack her desperation and fear. So it would be the loss of husband and father she would have played to, the loss of everything she had thought to rely upon, the stable factors in her young life. She had probably tried to explain that she had lost everything that she loved…

She felt a sudden sinking in her stomach; surely Elizabeth hadn't said that had she? She hadn't been so foolish, so… crass ….given what Jack had done for her? But the mention of the whores made it more than possible that she had. Hell! That was something it really wasn't a good idea to say to a man like Jack, not if even a part of what Gibbs had told her was true. But then did Elizabeth know any of that, and did she believe it if she did? Elanor wasn't sure that she believed it herself, but she had lived somewhat longer than Elizabeth and she was sure that it wasn't a good idea to tell a man like Jack Sparrow that no one had ever loved him; nearly as bad as telling him that he had never loved.

Oh Lord, please heaven she hadn't thrown that one at him too, and him the great romantic figure! Though looking at his face she might well have done. Wasn't much she could say to smooth things over if that was the level of what had passed between them, so she had better go and find Elizabeth and discover exactly what it was that the girl had said. It wasn't going to be an easy conversation and she must not forget that Elizabeth was alone and scared, it would not do for both of them to lose their tempers. Any more than it would do for Jack to suddenly decide to leave without a moments' further notice, for that would attract undesirable attention.

For a moment she stared at Jack, seeing the anger still stalking his expression, it was unusual for him to sustain this level of rage for so long, matters were therefore bad and it might take unusual measures to get them back on course. Perhaps believing Mr Gibbs might be a way forward.

Slowly she got to her feet and moved around the bed until she stood beside him, he didn't seem to notice her, lost as he was in some dark thoughts of his own. After a moment of scrutiny she touched one finger gently against the pistol barrel and tapped it,  
"Do you remember what it was like Jack," she said softly, "when you thought you had lost everything? Lost the life you dreamed of, lost your crew… your ship?"  
His eyes snapped up to meet hers, widening with surprise as if he hadn't expected that line of attack. Elanor said nothing more, just inclined her head towards him slightly, then withdrew her hand, turned in a swirl of silk and left him alone with his thoughts and the heart of the captain of the Dutchman.

XXX

"Are you leaving tonight?" Elizabeth asked defiantly, she was almost sure but she had to ask the question anyway.  
Her compnaion seemed puzzled by the idea,  
"Why would you think that? We said two days time. I see no reason to change that."  
Elizabeth turned to look at her wondering if she meant it or if they were going to steal away in the night. 'Nonsense', the sensible part of her scoffed, 'Jack would do nothing to draw undesirable attention, having gone to such efforts to avoid this far.' But he could always pretend that he had received a message, the frightened part looked towards Elanor,  
"Jack…." Her voice faded away then she swallowed hard and squared her shoulders, she had no intention if lying about her actions however hard they were to admit. "Jack wanted to be rid of me before, and now….. well I said some things I shouldn't have said and I doubt he will want to in the same town as I, let alone the same inn."

Elanor suppressed a sigh, was it just youth she wondered, or would Elizabeth go through her whole life assuming she was the centre of the world? Would motherhood break this self absorption? For the sake of the coming child she hoped so. With an effort she kept her thoughts out of her voice, striving for patience.

"You do him a disservice on both counts, he does not 'want to be rid of you' but there are other things happening, and they rest heavily on his shoulder too. As man not much given to taking responsibility easily he's finding it hard. But the captain in him is well to the fore, as you have probably noticed, so it chafes him that he can't get on and do what he needs to be done."  
She gave Elizabeth a sideways look,  
"He's a man of action or hadn't you noticed. Sitting around like this is not natural for him, certainly not when he has to stay sober while he does it, not surprisingly he finds it tedious and it wears his patience."  
A frown skittered across Elizabeth's face then her expression settled into a somewhat half hearted defiance,  
"He doesn't seem to find it tedious, just me. He was on most friendly terms with a lawyer this morning, and that was something I never thought to see!"  
Elanor smiled,  
"Jack will do what it takes, and its surprising the range of people he can tolerate. He would not have found it difficult. I expect he felt some inner glee at being accepted and deferred to by a representative of the same law that would like to hang him. He might even have liked the man. I have noticed that Jack respects real virtue and hinesty even if he feels no desire to emulate it."  
Elizabeth looked surprised, but her expression lightened a little.  
"I hadn't thought of that, but you might well be right for he never seemed to hold James actions against him."

Mention of the past, and James, seemed to return some normality to her mood and for a moment the girl she must once have been re-surfaced,  
"In some way I think he would have liked me to marry James. Not that he disliked Will you understand, but… I suppose it was that they were both sailors and so in Jack's eyes James was a better man. Though I can't see why that should be when Will's father was one of his crew."  
"One of his mutinous crew." Elanor said softly.  
Elizabeth's eyes widened at that,  
"Yes. I had always assumed that he blamed Barbossa for that, but it's true that he had no liking for Raggetti or Pintel either. But surely he could see that Will would not do such a thing?"  
"I thought that he did do such a thing."  
Elizabeth blinked as if she had not expected Elanor to be so impolite as mention that.  
"But he needed to rescue his father," she responded her tone implying that it was obvious that made it different.  
Elanor was not in the mood to play, and wondered, not for the first time, at the conveinient and plastic nature of so many people's morality, certainly in this world of slaves and drop of the hat hangings.

"That made it alright did it? He wanted to save his father so what ever he did to get what he wanted was alright?"  
"Well….. But…. it was his father!"  
"A man he hadn't seen in years, who had abandoned him to play pirate and who had been content to leave a man who as far as I know treated him well to die of thirst and starvation."  
Elizabeth's face clouded,  
"What could Will's father have done about that? You never met Barbossa, you cannot imagine what he was like."  
Elanor felt a spurt of anger and suppressed it, 'I've met a hundred Barbossa's', she thought, 'and the men who followed them. Just as I've met tens of Becketts' and scores of Mercers. Why do you think they are unique? Your Will went after what he wanted, treasure as he saw it, first you and then his father, but how was that different to Barbossa? In time, when William had everything else he wanted, it might well have been gold and pearls, it tends to go like that. What would you have thought then?'  
But it was true that Barbossa was not a nice man, and it was to deal with is needs that they were leaving Elizabeth to cope alone. What would the girl make of that? Though somehow she doubted that she would be coping alone, Jack had seen that she was well provided for but he might still arrange for someone to keep a watchful eye on her if only to make sure she remained true to her Will.

"Would you ever consider another man Elizabeth? What if William could not return."  
Elizabeth smiled,  
"He will come." she looked at the woman beside her in curiosity, "I think that Jack has told you all about William, whoever you are. I cannot imagine why, he will tell me nothing of you but it seems he has told you my story in full."  
"He needed my help." Elanor said dryly, "and I wasn't in the mood to give it without very specific answers. As for me, well you can take my word that my story is not something that you would want to know, or even that you would believe."  
"I've seen men who were corpses in the moonlight, could it be stranger than that?"  
Those deep green eyes met hers blandly and it was clear she did not intend to be drawn on the matter of herself. Her answer confirmed it,  
"It does not matter, but you can take my word that the business of Beckett and the Dutchman is not over yet. You have a child to think of, a future and that will be longer than your past. The days with pirates were an aberration you did not chose and now they are over, keep your mind fixed on that."

The shadow that haunted so many of Elizabeth's dawns rose before her eyes and she heard herself saying,  
"And if I do not live to be a mother to my child? What then? You may call it an aberration but Will and I must live with consequences daily! Without Will, and with no family that can claim it, how would our child fare?"  
The woman in front of her was silent for a moment, watching her face as if reading something there, then she turned and drew Elizabeth's arm through hers steering her away from the shore and back towards the road. The look on her face suggested that she had come to some form of decision  
"I doubt that it will happen; I think you are a survivor, just as Jack and I are. Stay away from pirates, keep away from those who might want to know about your past in any detail, and I think you will make a good age. But if anything should go wrong then you have my word that your child will not be uncared for. Should you die between now and the day your husband returns someone will come forward to be a mother to your child I promise you."  
Elizabeth stopped forcing the other woman to come a halt too and face her, wanting to ask how she would know but afraid to ask, afraid of the answer, even knowing she would not get an answer. For a moment she scrutinized that impossibly beautiful face as closely as her own had been searched a little while before, Elanor's eyes met hers without hesitation holding her look. Finally Elizabeth sighed,  
"I will trust you, though heaven knows why I should. But somehow you remind me of James and I think your word means as much to you as his did to him. "She smiled slightly, "I don't think Jack would leave Will's child defenseless either, he is too much of a good man however he might wish to deny it." She swallowed hard, "I did not mean what I said to him, will you tell him that. I'm not sure what he gave up for us but I think it was something he wanted very much indeed. He is a better man than he wishes to be at heart and both Will and I know it, though it hasn't always seemed that way. Tell him I didn't mean what I said on the Pearl that day either."  
"Tell him yourself."  
"I doubt that he would listen to me, or believe me, not any more, and I would not blame him, for both were cruel and unnecessary. He has done nothing to me that he deserved either."

Elanor, remembering the chest and the pistol hoped that was still true.


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24**

They were gone.

The carriage had arrived in the morning and been made ready in the middle of the afternoon, Jack insisting that they leave in time to make the journey back to where they had come ashore while it was still light.

Elizabeth had come to see them off, watching in astonished amusement as Jack played his part to the end, realising that she was finding it increasingly difficult to judge where 'Mr. Norrington' ended and Jack began. He might have been tempted to slip a little this close to the ending, and she had half expected that he might just for the fun of it, but he had not, instead being all the gentleman taking elegant and dignified leave of the new friends who had come to say their goodbyes. He had stayed in character as he gave a few words of wisdom to the cook's son who had an ambition to go to sea, and handed out coins to the maids and waiters with a kind but almost patriarchal air. Rebecca, watching with her new mistress, a handkerchief to her eyes, had commented on a woman's good fortune in having such a husband, and a maid's even better fortune in having such a master, for, so she said,

"Never has Mr. Norrington attempted to sneak a kiss, or catch me in a corner or pull me onto his lap. Kind and polite he has been, treated me almost as if I were a lady, always calling a waiter to fetch the coals or a pail of water. Father was right when he said he was as much of a true gentleman as a maid to could wish to work for. Good judge of a man is my dad, well known for it, and he thought well of Mr Norrington, even on the little he saw of him."

Watching as Jack bestowed a silver coin on the cook, rather than the expected copper one, and in praise, so he said, of her pies, Elizabeth smiled slightly,

"Mr. Norrington is indeed a good man, and a generous one, he has done much for William and I." She placed a hand upon her belly as the child kicked her hard, "But I wish they did not have to leave so soon."

"Now there Mrs. Turner, do not be worrying so." Rebecca soothed, "It is hard that he has to be about business now, taking your sister away too, but all will be well, and before you know where you are you will have a fine healthy child and they will be back to drink its' health."

"Yes," Elizabeth said softly, "I expect that you are right."

She watched as Jack tucked his purse into his pocket and, turning, extended a hand to Elanor.

'I hope so.' She thought, "but can I be sure? He has said they will return, but then Jack says many things he does not mean. Matters between us seemed to be repaired but can I be sure? Was he just hoping to escape with as little further recrimination as was possible?'

With a careful air Jack helped Elanor up the step and into the coach, watching her settle her skirts before leaping nimbly in beside her. As the door was closed by the groom and the step pulled away Elizabeth crossed the yard to say her final goodbyes.

"Have a good voyage, and I hope to hear news of you as soon as wave and wind allow it." She said, very conscious of the eyes and ears surrounding them. "If you should cross William's path in the east then give him my love, and my letter, and tell him that I think of him constantly."

"We will," Elanor said, suppressing a smile at the fleeting look of alarm that had crossed Jack's face at the suggestion they might meet Will Turner, "though I doubt that we will see him, for Jonathon tells me we are unlikely to be sailing the same waters. But never fear we will leave word for him at those places he is likely to visit."

"Aye, our word on that." Jack added with a faint smile.

He leant forward, and spoke loud enough for all to hear,

"Take care of yourself sister in law, and we will hope to back in time for the child's first birthday."

Then he sat back a little so his face was less easily seen by the onlookers and dropped his voice to a much lower pitch and for a moment Mr. Norrington was lost to Jack Sparrow,

"And leave the …you know what well alone luv, and never forget who you are. Or rather forget who you are… were…. have been, that is. Savvy?"

"I understand," she said more loudly, "and of course I will do as you ask. I hope you have a kind sea and a safe journey. There are few pirates these days but keep a watchful eye and Elanor safe."

A smile flashed through Jack's eyes as he leaned forward again, but his words were sober enough,

"Trust me for that Elizabeth, I know how to guard my treasure."

Elizabeth's brows rose as she wondered what to make of that, while Elanor just gave Jack a slightly wry look, which he countered with a sickeningly adoring one as he reached forward and patted her knee,

"Well my love, I once told a man that all treasure was not silver and gold and you prove that to admiration."

The two women exchanged a look of resigned disbelief before Elanor half rose and leaned through the open window to briefly kiss Elizabeth's brow,

"Take care child," she said softly, "and take care of the child." She pulled Elizabeth closer to the window and kissed her cheek, "Remember that he does tell the truth, and times are still dangerous," she breathed into Elizabeth's ear, "keep a bag packed at all times for the pair of you, and have ready coinage to hand. If we hear anything that threatens you we will come, but if strangers arrive and you have any doubts about them at all then take Rebecca and the child on a sudden visit to Jonathon's relatives."

She sat back allowing Jack to take her place at the window. He reached out and took Elizabeth's hand,

"Take care Elizabeth, and be easy that I will look after your sister." He reached into his coat and took out a small book, "this is for my nephew or niece when they come. You may be glad of the stories to tell to them when they will not sleep."

He closed her hand about the book and looked at her intently, even so his tone was light,

"My personal favourite is the one about the sea monster; I heartily commend it to you."

She looked at him curiously and his look became more intent, he nodded at her slightly,

"Its' chapter five you will find."

"Very well," she said slowly, "I will be sure to read it."

Jack smiled,

"Mind you do," he muttered just loud enough for her to hear as he sank back into the shadow again.

He flapped a hand at her, obviously anxious to be gone, maybe the strain of Mr. Norrington was becoming too much after all. She nodded and stepped back, and, as she rejoined Rebecca in the doorway, she heard him give the instruction to drive on.

With a whistle the coachman urged his horses forward and with a clatter pf hooves and a clanking of harness they passed through the arch and out onto the road, and away from her. Elizabeth followed them out through the shadows and then stood and watched until they were lost in the dust and the distance.

XXX

As the coach rattled out of the town and onto the coast road Elanor gave a sigh of relief and pulled the hat from her head, Jack had been staring out of the window, apparently lost in thought, but at the movement he looked back towards her and frowned,

"Careful, we are not clear yet. Would be a pity to give ourselves away now having come this far."

"If anyone asks I shall imply that my husband was to blame," she replied with a wink, "I don't think anyone would find that strange. Do you?"

That banished his frown and replaced it with a broad grin,

"Expect not, us being what might be considered newly weds." He looked at her speculatively, "Now there are fewer prying eyes I suppose you are not of a mind to reconsider your stance on… certain matters,…. are you?" He added hopefully.

"No."

The smile faded to a mere shadow of itself and he leaned forward and took her hand raising it to his lips and kissing her finger tips lightly,

"Not even a little bit," he said softly.

"No." she smiled at him, "and it wouldn't be a little bit would it? Start and who knows if we could stop, and even if we did it would only make matters more difficult later."

He sighed, and sat back with a shrug,

"So you keep sayin' though I'm still at a loss to see why." He was doing his best to sound unconcerned and not quite managing it.

Elanor looked at him in silence for a moment while wondering what to say, she had already indulged his vanity enough for one day in that last comment, though he had not followed up on that which was… intriguing.

But she couldn't deny that he had behaved himself with exemplary, and unexpected, restraint despite the closeness that had been forced upon them; when she had agreed to this game she had not anticipated they really would have to share a bed on a nightly basis and three weeks of it had strained her resolve more than Jack was aware of. Well more than she hoped he was aware of. One more night and they would be back on board with an increase in distance and a lessening of the strain on them both, and Jack had been put under strain by the business, she was quite well aware of that. He deserved some form of explanation at the very least, though it remained to be seen if he would accept it. But perhaps something would be better than nothing, so she tried to put into inoffensive words something that she knew Jack would be more than ready to take offence at,

"Because it would end up causing trouble between us and at the moment we can't afford that. Whether we like it or not each of us is the only ally the other has and we can't risk anger or any other emotion to make us doubt that we will each watch each others back."

His mouth twisted in something not quite a pout,

"Fair enough as it goes, but I can't see why a little mutual amusement and pleasure should do any such thing. Just once anyway, to settle the curiosity."

She shook her head,

"Because it wouldn't stop there would it? When there wasn't anything else around you would want to do it again, and I might not wish to and then you would get irritated because I said no."

He opened his mouth to protest at that but she continued on as if she hadn't noticed,

" You would accuse me of being unreasonable, that having given in the once there is no reason why I shouldn't give in again; and if I said yes another time then it would be even worse when I said no the next time."

He frowned and then suddenly smiled his most charming smile, easing himself to the edge of the seat and reaching forward to take her hand in his again,

"If I promise that I'll not do that then we could…."

She smiled equally brightly at him.

"But it would be a worthless promise Jack, and we both know it. Oh I'll grant you that you might think you can keep to it now, but somewhere inside yourself you must know that you couldn't, not unless you are more foolish or self deluding than I give you credit for. In the end there would be recriminations, you'd accuse me of always wanting things on my terms, claim that I never thought of your needs. Worse still would be the risk of jealousy, possessiveness. What if I find a man I want Jack, if only for a night and out of curiosity? What are you going to do? Wish me luck and wander off with one of your whores, or try and run him through or dump him off the dock? I know which I think is the most likely. Don't say that you won't because you don't know, but you are a pirate and man of your time, not mine, I know what that means even if you don't."

That appeared to annoy him,

"And what does that mean!" he demanded with a haughty air.

Elanor fanned herself with her hat, the coach was stuffy thought the afternoon air was not overly hot and a stiff breeze was beginning to toss the grass beside the road.

"That we come from different worlds with different expectations. I am not a woman of your world Jack, I don't think like them, I don't want what they want or believe what they believe. I'm not Elizabeth or Anamaria or Polly. I'm not like anything you have known, because I probably don't feel what they feel either."

Jack frowned again at that and leaned forward as if to argue, but she went on without pause,

"You called me a terrible woman once, and I rather expect you are right, by your expectations anyway, but you have no idea how terrible you would find me. I don't play by your rules, and even you have some of those though you may not know it. In the end you would either hate or despise me, or worse still fear me. So it's better that we keep our distance. Treat each other as fellow captains and sailors and leave it at that."

She looked at him seriously for a moment, seeing the warring annoyance and indecision in his face, she softened her voice,

"You've seen it happen before Jack, I'm sure you have. If you think about it there is no reason to assume it couldn't happen to us, certainly not given the unusual circumstances."

Jack watched her in silence for a moment, as if considering whether to make a more frontal assault, then contented himself with a partial denial,

"Don't think that you're right about that, but it's true that I've seen more than one good crew broken up by that kind of thing. Jealousy is a devil to cope with when you are far from land and the hope of escape. Don't have to be rhyme or reason for it neither."

There was a shadow in his face that suggested he might have a deep and personal knowledge of the matter.

She nodded,

"It is; which is why in my world sexual relationships are forbidden when at sea."

He snorted,

"Forbid all you like it still happens."

She smiled slightly

"Not that often, they train it out of us from an early age. What you do on shore is up to you of course, but none of it is brought aboard if you want to avoid punishment."

He leaned back again, a considering look on his face

"Must be a strange, this world of yours, wonder if I'll ever get to see it."

That startled her for she had almost managed to forget the water of life and its effects on them these last few weeks. It was obvious that Jack had not for he smiled slyly and continued.

"I'm not the same either, now am I, so perhaps it's not true that I'm a man of my time any longer. It's just us Elanor, in the end we are all that we have, terrible or not."

There was no denying that, so she cast around for something to distract him,

"I did wonder if you were going to ask me to give some of the water to Elizabeth when we first went looking for her."

Jack shook his head, the implied lechery of a moment before vanishing from his face as if it had never been to be replaced by a slightly regretful look,

"I might have done but for her…condition, bit of a shock, to be sure, seein' her so expectant. Givin' the water to her would have made the situation with William easier I suppose, as well as providing us with another companion and resource, and I'll not deny that had been in me mind. But things bein' as they are it's not to be thought of, for if we gave her some then she would want it for the child, then they would want it for their children and where would it end? Sooner or later someone would find out and then there would be no rest for us. Better in the circumstances that she follows her father to the next world in the natural course of events."

"And her husband? How will he react if he finds out that we withheld it"

She caught a glimpse of an odd, almost furtive, look flit across his face as he turned away from her and sat back into the shadow

"William might not sail as long as Davy Jones, lots of things might happen to change that fact," he said softly.

Elanor was suddenly sure that Jack was not speaking generally but that he had some real expectation that might happen. She was quiet for a moment, thinking about it,

"They told you something, didn't they?" she said eventually, "Those people at the temple, or whatever it was."

His face was shuttered, almost expressionless, and he gave a slight flick of his hand, as if pushing the idea away,

"Not told as such, more…. made known. Can't tell you what because I don't know; just that more than Beckett's world may have ended in the maelstrom."

She watched his face reading the seriousness of his words in the blankness of his expression,

"Is Barbossa something to do with it?"

"Yes," he said harshly, as if suddenly exasperated with the whole business, "Barbossa is something to do with it. Think I'd be haring off after this sword if there weren't good reason for it? Barbossa's soul, shrunken thing that it is, ain't a good reason."

"And William Turner is a part of it too?"

That question brought a wariness to his eyes,

"He may be; I don't know as yet."

He looked back at her the expressionless mask suddenly replaced with a wolfish grin,

"But that matter is dealt with for the moment."

Elanor didn't pretend to misunderstand,

"Unless she opens the chest."

Jack's smile took on a self satisfied edge.

"She won't, and any way she has to get to it first, and we'll be long gone before she is of a shape to allow that."

"True enough."

She caught his speculative look out of the corner of her eye and knew that he was about to return to their earlier conversation, she took out Elizabeth's letter to her husband, handed to her in company for the look of it;

"Could we find her Will for her?" she asked, flicking it with a fingertip, more to distract him again than because she really wanted to know; she rather thought she already knew the answer anyway.

He shook his head,

"No, the Dutchman has returned to her proper place, the world beyond the green flash." His stared out of the window again, towards the sea just visible over the salt coated bushes lining the road.

"There will be no more up is down," he said softly, "she will return only at her appointed time. At least we must very much hope so."

"But doesn't she collect souls lost at sea?"

"True, that she does, but not on this side. The Dutchman sails the seas beyond the map, she can only visit the waters of the living world once every ten years. At least…. unless her captain goes mad and subverts her purposes, then….. well who knows, she came once before, perhaps she could come again. Which is, after all, the reason for our recent exertions."

"And her captain's heart is locked in a chest." Elanor said sadly.

Jack seemed unmoved by the pathos of the vision, being focused on more practical concerns,

"That it is, and for the sake of all sailors that chest must be kept away from those who would use it for their own nefarious ends. It would not do at all for young Mr. Turner to go the way of Jones, we must ensure he has not reason to take leave of his mind, such as it ever was." He raised a finger in emphasis, "So the chest must be hidden even from his wife, a desired outcome which we, with great aplomb, have achieved." He sounded more than a little self satisfied

Elanor turned her eyes towards the window, summer had taken a step back this last day and the sky was cloud ridden and wind swept, 'unsettled and unpredictable,' she thought, 'like events. But we are nearly clear, at least of this stage, and that chest is going to be far harder for anyone to find than even Jack thinks. Though I rather hope that he doesn't find that out just yet.'

XXX

Evening was starting to darken the sky as Elizabeth climbed the stairs to her room to dress for dinner. She yearned for solitude but Mrs. Waters had invited her to a small musical party, to take her mind of her sisters leaving, or so she had claimed. Rebecca had already laid out her gown and wrap and gone in search of hot water, so Elizabeth took the opportunity of being alone and crossed to the chest beneath the window, unlocked it and slowly opened the lid.

The chest that held Will's heart was no longer here and she was taken by a wave of loneliness as she remembered that. But if he was to be safe then that was how it had to be. In its' place was a smaller, polished, box of light wood, the contents of which were to be kept as private as ever Will's chest had been. Elanor had given it to her that morning before they left, along with a lengthy and detailed set of instructions to observe when she was brought to bed, and while the child was in arms. Elizabeth had read them with growing astonishment but had promised her 'sister' that they would be obeyed to the letter, under the guise of wisdom passed down from their grandmother and family lore. It covered everything from the best position to give birth (apparently any position other than laying down) and the importance of clean linen and hot water, to how to use the 'herbal cures' contained in the small pale box. They were clearly labeled ('to halt excessive blood loss', 'to ease pain' and 'to reduce fever' amongst others that Elizabeth would never have thought of) and there was little of note about them about them for they were nothing more than small brown bottles with white labels. Despite this Elanor had been adamant that she should not leave them on view or use them unless there was a real need.

It had made her wonder if these were things from whatever strange place the other woman hailed from, and reminded her that she had not succeeded in discovering any part of that secret, not that it mattered any more.

Sinking down onto the bed Elizabeth thought back to the day before. Jack had sought her out after breakfast, telling her they were to take a journey. She had not wanted to go, but then nor had she wanted to argue when matters were still fragile between them. For though the accusations of their earlier interview had seemed to have been put to one side they had not been resolved. Jack had simply given her a slight smile when she had tried to apologise, saying only,

"Sticks and stones luv, not of any importance in the scheme of things. You were angry and are not used to minding your tongue, think no more of it," before apparently banishing the matter from his mind.

But she was not sure that she was forgiven, for he seemed to have withdrawn away from her in much the same way he had those weeks after they brought him back from the locker. During that dreadful time he rarely had spoken to her, and barely looked at her, not even when she pointed a pistol at him, it wasn't quite as bad as that, at least now she didn't get the strange feeling that he was looking through her when she spoke to him, but the air of distance had returned. She wanted to show that she trusted him and that she valued him and his efforts on her behalf, and so she had simply picked up her hat and followed him down to the yard and inn's small carriage. Elanor was already there and waiting.

They had driven for three hours, stopping only twice, before they arrived at the farmstead Jack had apparently purchased for her. It was a built of wood and stone, the roof steeply pitched and topped by a double set of chimneys, and set within the remains of a garden. To front and back were paddocks and stable yards and off to the right a small river burbled at the bottom of a slight slope. More surprisingly to the left, on the other side of the garden wall, was a small coppice through which she could just see the spire of a church. Though the sea was out of sight the sound of it could just be heard on the wind. As she looked at its sturdy walls and solid door she wondered where the money for this had come from, for she could not call upon her families wealth without betraying her continued survival, but she knew Jack well enough to know that it would be better not to ask. He would, in all probability, lie.

After a moment or two of silence staring at the house Jack leaned out of the carriage window and shouted something to the coachman, who replied by turning the horses away from the house and towards the sound of the sea. Five minutes of bouncing on a rutted track and the coach halted once more and the three of them climbed down onto springy turf scattered with small blue and white flowers.

Jack took Elizabeth's arm giving her a roughish smile.

"Take care now, not do for you to trip and fall, for you would be the very devil to set upon your feet again."

She glared at him for a moment before turning her face into the wind, allowing him to lead her across the wiry grass but paid him no attention as he did so for the movement of the air and the sound of the waves suddenly transported her back in time. Back to the last golden moments of her youth, back to the days when she and Will had walked the cliff path at Port Royale, her maid always ten paces behind them, and talked of their wedding and the life to come. It had all seemed so easy then, so predictable, they would marry and live happily ever after, in a cottage if needs be, though that was never a possibility her father would allow. Looking back now they seemed like a lost age, a perfect world when the sun shone and the birds sang and her only real concern the need to wear a corset with her wedding dress. How little they had known then, how little care there had been, that time when she still believed in the law and that God was in His heaven, when they both believed in the eventual triumph of good and honest men. Before they understood that there were other gods most certainly not in heaven, and that honest could mean many things and not always good. But the storm clouds had already been gathering just beyond the horizon. Beckett must have been plotting their ruination even as they talked of hymns and wedding gifts, his ship already setting sail from the east as they laughed and drank tea in the garden and hoped that Jack found his treasure and a respectable life. Those last weeks before they knew what it was to be a pirate, before discovered how easy it was to become one when someone like Beckett was involved,

"Elizabeth," it was Elanor's voice, "are you alright? It hasn't tired you, coming here, has it? But it is important."

They had stopped several feet from the edge of the cliff and she sighed into the wind, feeling it pull at her hat and hair,

"No, I'm not tired, just remembering another time and another cliff."

She didn't see them exchange a look but she felt each of them take her arm and draw her slightly further forward. They kept a tight grip as she looked down into a small and secluded bay, deep water almost to the sand judging by the colour of it.

"The draught is deep enough for the Dutchman to come close into the bay," Jack said quietly, "made sure of that before I took it, and there is no other house in clear sight. Besides all this land is yours, no one will walk here without your say so. There is no right of way or footpath across these fields so no one would have cause to cross, nor complaint if you forbid it."

She turned and looked at him, surprised to see a shadow of sadness and compassion in his face. Whatever Elanor had said to him the evening before had hit the mark for it seemed that she was forgiven, that he had succeeded in overcoming his hurt and anger at her tirade, at least for today.

"Thank you Jack," she said softly, watching his face closely as she spoke.

He seemed almost embarrassed, just as he had that day, her wedding and one day, as they had said goodbye on the Pearl, and he shrugged and looked out towards the horizon.

"Just keep hold of the fact that he is out there waiting for you."

Then suddenly he turned away, pulling her hand through the crook of his arm,

"But not today, and today we have business to be about and not a lot of time to accomplish it."

With that he took Elanor's arm two and the pair of them drew her away from the headland and back towards the carriage.

The door of the house had been thrown open when they arrived at the gate and a maid was waiting for them with tea and scones, in the drawing room a fire had been lit and its' flames were reflected from polished furniture and leaded window glass. Elanor and Elizabeth had consumed their tea slowly while Jack had wolfed his down and then disappeared towards the stables, only returning when the maid was clearing the cups.

"Just time for a stroll I think, take a look at this garden of yours and may be one of the paddocks," his smile was bright enough but the quality of it, and his tone, gave no room for contradiction.

So Elizabeth pulled on her hat and cloak again and followed him and Elanor out to the edge of the trees, protesting only when it was clear they did not plan to stop there.

"Path's clear and dry," was all Jack said as he shooed her forward as if she were a recalcitrant goat, "beside there is something important on the other side."

The 'something important' proved to be the small chapel she had seen when they first arrived, but of more interest to Jack was the small cemetery. Taking her arm he pulled her forward to stand beside a raised vault of weathered stone,

"A fitting hiding place would you not say….."

Elizabeth looked at him with wide eyes as he stepped forward and slid the top stone to the side, then bending into the shadow behind it he produced the chest he had taken from her that first that day in the inn. The chest holding Will's heart.

"You want to do the honours?" he asked jauntily, "though given..…" he indicated her swollen belly with a nod, "it's probably better if I do."

Before she could agree or protest he leaned forward and placed the chest within the monument and then heaved the lid back into place and turned to her with a grin,

"There, no worries, chest is safe for as long as needs be and you'll have an advantage most wives can't claim in that you will always know where your husband's heart is."

Elanor produced a small posy of flowers from the folds of her full skirts and handed them to Elizabeth, sending a Jack a frown that caused him to look lightly shamefaced as he stepped back with a bow to allow her to place them on the stone lid.

A sob rose in her throat as she laid the bright bundle down, and as tears made her vision swim she let her finger roam gently across the stone, it was faintly rough, as a blacksmiths fingers had once been, but it was as warm as they had been when last she held them. She heard Elanor come close and whisper something to Jack, then soft footsteps as they left her alone with her memories.

She didn't know how long she stood there, eye blinded with tears, heart aching for something never really had and that now never could be, but eventually she felt Elanor's arm around her waist.

"Time to go," the other woman said softly.

They turned away and Elizabeth looked up to see Jack watching her with a somber expression as they walked towards him, saying nothing until she was within reach, then he took her arm again and drew her back towards the path.

"William can rest easy now," he said seriously, "his heart is, after all, in the best and suitable place that it could be. Ground is properly sanctified, Elanor saw to that."

Elizabeth suppressed her surprise, unwilling to offend either of them again but astonished that a companion of Jack's should give a thought to such a thing. His somber look had brightened as they moved away from the graveyard and she was struck by the thought that Jack might find these graves an uncomfortable reminder of his own death. But if that was so then he put it behind him quickly enough,

"No one will think anything amiss if you visit the church each day," he quirked an eyebrow at her suddenly the pirate again, "getting a reputation for piety can never harm a respectable young wife when her husband is at sea."

Now they were gone and there wasn't even the chest to talk to any more; without it she wondered how Will would hear her. If indeed he had ever heard her. Nine long years must be lived through before she could take her child down to that shore to meet its' father. Would she be the same woman then, the same one she had been on the day he had left?

She heard Rebecca's step on the stair and rose and put the box of physick back into the chest, locking it securely and pocketing the key before crossing to stand at the window. As she stared down at the yard below, at the grooms whistling about their business or calling cheekily to a hurrying maidservant, it occurred to her that she wasn't the only one who would change in that time, and that she couldn't be sure what manner of man would return to her.

XXX


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25 The end of Mr Norrington**

"No Ship. " Jack muttered to himself as he stared out towards the empty bay and to the no less empty horizon visible between the headlands, "The ship's gone."  
He turned to Elanor in a sudden fury,  
"The bloody ship's gone!" even he was slightly taken aback by the level of the bellow he produced.  
Elanor stared at him as if he were slightly demented, not a look he saw often on her face, unlike some others.  
"Of course the ship's gone." She replied calmly, as if it was obvious to any sensible person that the ship would be gone.  
Jack drew a deep and steadying breath then stalked across the shingle and stood in front of her, hands on hips, brows raised, the look on his face suggesting that only the most stringent deployment of self discipline was keeping his hand from his sword hilt,  
"Why… is the bloody ship gone?" he demanded carefully.  
Elanor's own brows rose,  
"Because staying here would have been too risky. Don't you think? We've been gone nearly a month, it would have been very surprising if someone hadn't noticed a ship anchored out there all this time, and even more surprising if, having seen it, someone hadn't got drunk enough or curious enough, or most likely both, to try and take a closer look. Given that the crew of said ship would be nowhere to be seen. You would have done and so would I, why assume no one else would."  
"Oh." Jack seemed to think about that for a moment and then he glared at her again, "Then it is coming back is it? Your ghost not abandoned us, Eh?"

She squinted up at him in surprise,  
"You think I want to stay here?" she demanded incredulously.  
That idea seemed to prick the bubble of his anger, and his posture eased a little, while the fire faded from his eyes as he thought about what she had just said,  
"Ah, well…. no, suppose not."  
A look of calculating curiosity replaced the anger of a moment before,  
"So your ghost can sail the ship alone can she?"  
Elanor met his look blandly,  
"If I ask her to."  
The slight but noticeable stress on the 'I' bought her a scowl before he tossed his head and ostentatiously returned to staring at the sea and sky.

After a moment of silent contemplation he stiffened again and half turned towards her,  
"Why hasn't it come back? Today was the appointed day for leavin'."  
Elanor threw a pebble in the direction of the shoreline, sending a crab scurrying away in haste,  
"Because the driver might have thought it odd if he had been asked to leave us here with the ship already waiting out in the bay, but with no sign of a long boat being put to sea." She explained with elaborate patience.  
"Oh," Jack gave that due consideration for a moment, glowering a little at her tone.  
"When is the ship coming back?" he demanded eventually.  
"Dusk."  
"Dusk!" his voice rose again, "We have sit here until dusk!"  
Elanor gave him an amused look,  
"Well I told you there was no reason for us to leave the inn so early. We could have had lunch and still have the carriage bring us here and had it leave again in plenty of time."  
She considered the pebble she had in her hand, deciding she liked the look of it,  
"Might even have got in afternoon tea," she said as she slipped it into her coat.

Jack muttered something under his breath and swaggered off towards the water line with a disgusted shrug while Elanor watched him go with a mix of amusement, sadness and guilt. She had no problem in understanding why he was in so poor a mood this morning and it wasn't just the idea of a six hour wait in this lonely spot for the ship to return. No, Jack's mood was curdled by the fact that he was having to face up, most unexpectedly and reluctantly, to the strange and wayward behaviour of one Captain Jack Sparrow, and there was no way of hiding that he wasn't finding it easy.

XXX

They had arrived at the inn yesterday, pulling up at the door just as the last red rays of the sun were paling to pink and gold. Jack had been stiff and frowning by the time they arrived while Elanor had taken a silent oath that, if she found that she had to stay here, she was going to significantly accelerate the understanding of seat design and suspension systems in the carriage making industry.

She had sought their room while Jack had supervised the unloading of the luggage, his eyes never straying far from the wooden chest that contained the heart of William Turner; not resting, as Elizabeth hopefully still thought, in a cool stone monument but instead bundled amongst the various baskets and trunks that held Elanor's silks, hats and jewelry. Only deep caution, coupled with an even deeper understanding of human nature, had prevented him from carrying the larger trunk that contained it to their rooms himself.

When the maids and porters who ferried their chattels up the steep and worm eaten stairs had returned to their other duties they had checked on the chest, Jack only satisfied by the faint sound of the thing he persisted in referring to as 'thump thump' even though he knew very well what the real word was. Once satisfied he had made sure that it was swathed in enough fabric to prevent the contents being heard by anyone else. Though, as Elanor had commented, who was going to suspect that it held what it did, or to put their ear against it unless they already had reason to seek it. But he insisted that it was pushed well out of sight and reach even though they had no reason to suspect anyone was looking for it here, or the fact that they, and it, would be here for less than twenty four hours. When he was satisfied that the chest was safe enough for the moment they both washed as much as was possible and changed their dust and sweat stained clothes before descending the stairs to dinner. Elanor consoling herself with the fact this was very nearly the last time she would need to tie herself into these stupid skirts, Jack not sure whether to be sorry or glad that this would be almost his last chance to tie her into them.

Unlike their first visit they had not been alone in the dining parlour and after exchanging a single warning glance both slipped easily into their married role, neither of them quite willing to admit, even to themselves, just how easy that had become. The womanly reserve that Elanor needed to assume to hide her origin was no longer so difficult to adopt, and Jack buffered her from both curiosity and unwelcome advances almost without being aware that he was doing it. After a meal of grilled fish and roast chicken she had taken herself back up to their room, ostensibly to a book, while Jack had accepted port and the offer of a game of cards from the other occupants of the dinner table, a pair of merchants traveling down the coast, and a soldier on his way to a new posting some miles inland. Elanor had not objected to his remaining, and had taken her leave of them with some relief, retiring alone to their room to count down the hours that separated her and her aching body from the comforts of home.

That she had been left alone in this way was no surprise, for she had guessed that Jack wanted to reduce the amount of time they must spend in close proximity. While she didn't blame him for that she could only hope that his game of cards didn't lead him into carelessness and that he stayed in character and off the brandy; and that he restrained any desire he might feel to cheat. Though she rather suspected he was good enough at cards to win easily even when he played honestly. If she was frank with herself she was glad of the card game. It was a relief to be to have some time to think about the events of the past few weeks without a maid hovering or Jack prowling.

As she sat at the window she reflected that she was no closer to understanding the truth of how he felt about Elizabeth Turner than she had been when they came ashore, though now she wondered if Jack knew himself. It didn't matter however, not any longer, for she was now convinced that he would help the girl if she needed it, though she suspected it was more for the sake of the boy who had risked everything when he snatched him from the gallows, and mostly for the sake of the child yet to be born. While Elanor struggled to see Jack as the fatherly type she found it easier to believe in his sense of responsibility for the unborn scrap than she might once have given credence to. Weeks of Jonathon Norrington had shown her more about Jack than the pirate seemed to be aware, for she was sure that a man truly without understanding of the lure of family and respectability could not have played the part so well. If Gibbs was to be believed, and Elizabeth's stories of the charges laid against him at his intended hanging had backed him up on this, Jack had played the part of an honest man before and with similar success. While others, certainly Mrs. Turner, saw this as further evidence of a talent for duplicity, it made Elanor wonder about the man Jack Sparrow had once hoped to be. It also made her wonder about his own family, or rather his father, for she knew the signs of a difficult childhood when she saw them.

She had not needed Jonathon to teach her that the pirate was a many layered man, she had known that long before this trip, but his alter ego had made her wonder if, for all his slippery conduct and disregard for the moralities, he was less the dishonest man at his core than he would have you believe. She didn't find that hard to understand either, not having seen Tortuga.

Her eyes drifted across to the wardrobe that hid the chest, wondering for a moment if Jack had any suspicion of her own plans for it, she would have to keep a close watch on it until it was safe in the strong room just in case he did and objected. Elizabeth's letter still rested in Jack's pocket but it seemed that there was little chance of delivering it, where the Dutchman sailed they could not go, even if they wanted to, and no traveling soul could carry it for them. She turned her eyes back to world outside with a reflective sigh, 'William Turner where are you, what stars are you watching and what are you thinking?' she mused as she watched the stars brighten against the night sky. It seemed that the lad was doomed to ignorance and that he would find more than he perhaps bargained for when he next came ashore. Assuming he ever came ashore again. So far she had not tackled Jack on what he had meant when he postulated that Will might not sail ten years, nor did she mean to, not until the matter of Barbossa was settled. Which meant, she realised, that she had no immediate plans to abandon Captain Sparrow; so when had she decided that?

Elanor sighed and pressed her forehead to thick and greenish glass, she wished she could be sure that her reading of him was correct, that she knew who and what he really was, for it would make deciding how to deal with him so much easier. But making dealing with him easier was not what Jack was all about. Keeping you off guard and wondering was second nature to him, and it seemed unlikely that he would abandon a behaviour that had helped him to survive now. Not when enemies seemed to abound. Even so she knew that he had come close on more than one occasion these last weeks, which only went to show that she was right to avoid intimacy, however much a part of her mind might whisper that this was the only marriage she was ever likely to see and therefore it would be foolish to pass up the only wedding night she was ever likely to get. It had been a source of some satisfaction that her own libido had come up with that particular reason for relenting before Jack had tried it, though not much before.

One more night of temptation to get through then they would be back to separate bunks with walls and doors between them. Why was that not the relief it should have been? She was weakening and she knew it, Jack had behaved far more gently and considerately than she had expected and that very restraint had made her want him more than any amount of swagger or lewd suggestions could have done. Did he know that? She had been at sea too long and Jack/Jonathon was far too attractive to be easily ignored, not when she could feel the warmth of his skin just a finger's wander away every night.

It had been hard on both of them, though maybe Jack hadn't realised that, and everything had been against them, the habit of intimacy creeping up on them with the pretence of domesticity, as she had known it might. If the Pearl had been coming to meet them then she might have relented and given him his one night, for it was a beautiful night with summer promise on the air, and if they had been separating immediately then she could have convinced herself that she could easily set him at the required distance again. But it would be many days before they rendezvoused with the Black Pearl and those days would open them up to all the dangers she had warned Jack of in the coach.

She had obvious and recent evidence of how far down the road they might already have slipped.

Though he generally kept his distance when he woke she had woken first these last three mornings and had done so to find his arm around her, his hand gripping her gently but possessively and with a look of unusual contentment on his face. Contentment and not satisfaction, and therein lay the warning, and she knew it. She was not given to self delusion and she had admitted to herself as she had lain and watched him, pleased to see him so relaxed, that the feeling was too comfortable and natural to be safe. Instinct as much as training warned her that any sexual intimacy would not necessarily be casual, there could be little doubt that it would damage their carefully built relationship and that such harm was closer than either of them wanted to think about. While she might not be at risk from such contact she was more convinced than ever that Jack was more vulnerable than he would give credence to. Everything she knew of people told her that if he discovered just how far from his vision of untrammelled self he was in danger of slipping then his reaction would be to resort to further feats of callousness and recklessness to prove to them both that he was still the man he thought that he wanted to be.

Which might well get the pair of them killed, probably unpleasantly, given the next item on their agenda.

For the first time since they had collected Elizabeth she turned her mind to what was coming and, not for the first time, she wished she had even half an idea what manner of thing this Lucifer's Sword might be. The tenth of an idea come to that, for somehow she could not believe it might a sword wielded by the devil. Not even in this cockeyed world.

Outside that world had slid first into shadow and then into night without her noticing, but the sounds from below betrayed the hour. Elanor had lit the candles and let down her hair before it occurred to her that without the help of Elizabeth, or a maid, she couldn't undo the fastenings of her dress, not even with the aid of a knife. With a sigh she first rang the bell, then leaned over the banister and called for a maid but no one came, and outside her window she could hear the serving girls giggling with the stable lads, their minds a long way from the guests and their needs. 'While the cat's away' she though with a sigh, for she had already been told that the lady of the house was at her sister's house nursing her after a bout of some form of fever that this place seemed prone to, 'but that doesn't solve my problem.' Leaving the window she returned to the dressing table where she sat for several minutes staring into the candle flame and swearing, and then she had gone and laid down on the bed to wait for the maids to leave their flirting and come in doors.

She was still there, though now fast asleep, three hours later when Jack returned.

XXX

Jack had stood for a moment outside the door, one hand on the latch and a tightening in his gut. He knew that she had meant her words of earlier, and known as well that it would be far more dignified a course to take her at her word and behave as if she was of no more interest to him than the kitchen slavey he had seen feeding swill to the pigs as they arrived. He also knew that it was going to be difficult to achieve, 'You're Captain Jack Sparrow.' he told himself, 'tis not beyond you. Kept your hands to yourself on that spit when Barbossa marooned you with the governor's daughter didn't you, and you can do the same again can you not? Hell man you have been doing it for the past month! One more night, that's all.' With that thought he pushed open the door and went in to unexpected darkness and silence. His first reaction was to reach for a pistol, his second to damn to hell whoever it was that had caught her unaware and hampered by skirts, and then to curse himself for not being better on his guard.

But when he found her asleep, her head pillowed on her hand and her skirts spread around her, well it had taken every grain of control that he had, and a timely reminder to himself that she was navy and in a hostile world and had a knife strapped to her thigh, not to kiss her awake and then go on kissing her. She'd not protest if he did, his every instinct and sense of the female creature, as well as two decades of loving and leaving women of all kinds, from lady to tavern wench, whore to nun, had told him that, but something still held him back. Perhaps it was the fact that he was not a fool, and if man is to escape being a fool then he must have some elementary knowledge of himself, and maybe that part of him that was not a fool warned that something more than the goods were stirring at the sight of her.

Or maybe it was the uncomfortable knowledge that when he dreamed of bedding her, which he had no hesitation in admitting that he did, it was not of a quick tumble as such dreams usually were. When he dreamed of her it was on clean sheets, with the ship beneath them and the tang of salt on the air; worse still was the knowledge that the dreams went beyond the taking of bodily release, that he also dreamed of the pleasure of lying beside her and talking of places seen and people known, at ease with a woman who needed nothing explained to her.

That knowledge was what held him back, and the fear of what these new dreams might mean. Once, a week or more back, he had woken knowing that he had dreamed of playing chess with her by candle light, the image so strong that for a moment he believed it real and tried to recall when it had been that he had sat with her, laughing as she took a pawn, the lace on her wrap as white as the chess queen.

That morning he had understood that she had been right in what she said, they were skirting turbulent waters, and perhaps he did not have to look that far for the reason. He was a man back from death and little looked the same as once it had. He had tried to recapture his pre-dying carefree hedonism but it had proved to be not so easy, or so it seemed, and surely it should have been so with Beckett dead? But nothing was the same any more, and it wasn't just the changes wrought by the water of life for he had been aware of it that day he stood on the dock and watched the Pearl sail away again, the day he broke his pact of lies with Giselle and Scarlet. Maybe it was Elizabeth's killing of him or perhaps it would always have come, that a man could only go so long on a diet of bread and rum; that as the years passed so easy pleasures palled and became stale, at least unless the man in question was a block headed fool. Even the occasional dalliance with a bird of a different plumage could only hold back the other needs for so long, Morgan and Bartholomew had discovered that if the stories were right, even bloody Teague had, and perhaps he had reached it on the locker shore. Maybe even before that. Elizabeth Swann had reminded him of a man he used to be, of times when he had aspired to, dreamed of something more than casual couplings on flea ridden linen, and she had stirred memories of other wants and needs long put aside. But Miss Swann had been the governor's daughter and it would have been foolhardy to have risked it, not while there was any chance of a quick rescue. But he might have done so even then if the lass had not so openly despised him, and that had been as good as a bucket of cold water in the crotch, and the head, well… mostly it had, that and her innocence and her ignorance. No one had ever accused him of torture, nor yet of murder, and it would have been both had he answered the message in the maids eyes. Possibly his and most certainly hers, though he was not sure which had mattered the most any more.

But Elanor was a different matter; she had no reputation of that sort to lose and would never have wanted one. She needed no schooling in the bitter truths of the world either, for she already knew them. She might not be a pirate, though he wasn't so sure of that, but she had walked the same paths anyways, and been to the same places, though for different reasons, even to death. He doubted she was looking for love any more than he was, nor were they ever likely to find that oversold dream in each other's company, but she was beautiful and desirable this man woman, and more than that she was quick and strong and in no way soft for all her curves, and most definitely not a fool. She was like an amazon of the Mediterranean legends, brave and bold, a warrior with a true warrior's grace and generosity. He would always feel safer with her at his back yet he was beginning to see that encouraging her to stand there might destroy him.

But he couldn't do it without her and her ghost crewed ship, and it must be done. So she must stand at his back and he must take care not to get too close to this star come to earth if he was to avoid being burned up by the fire of her. And yet…

He was still standing and staring at her when she woke, 'no warning o'course' he thought bitterly, 'no chance to recollect me self,' one moment she was asleep and the next those wide sea green eyes were staring back at him.  
"Take some time off Jack," she said softly her eyes never leaving his face. "There will be places even in a small port like this where you can go and relax."  
"What do you mean by that?" he replied softly never breaking eye contact, and knowing all the time what she was saying.  
Her look didn't change,  
"You know every well, and I know that you know that I know it very well too."  
He said nothing just watched her until she sighed and sat up rubbing her eyes,  
"Tomorrow we go back to sea, set off on some damn fool goose chase from which might kill us all. I see no reason why you should deny yourself that pleasure." She looked back at him. "I do understand you know and I'll not think anything less of your for it. So go and find yourself the nearest brothel and forget who we are and what stalks us for a night."

He sat on the edge of the bed, his hand going to the silk of her skirt without him being aware of it,  
"Anxious to get rid of me are you dearie? Got some bonny lad hidden in the chest?" he said softly, but he felt a sudden surge of something uncomfortable even as he said it.  
"Hardly," she replied dryly, "that sort of company is less easy for me to find in your world. " She gave him a rueful smile, "though it would be no harder for me to find such services in my world than it would be for you."  
He raised his brows at that,  
"As you said luv, it's a different world."  
"As I have had ample evidence in recent weeks."  
He gave a half laugh and looked down at her spreading skirts, it was the blue one that he had always liked, the one that could have come from a fancy portrait and made her look even more like an angel.  
"Suppose so. You've done well Elanor, fine lady you've made and never slipped a moment, though I know there were times when you wanted to shrivel a man with a look, aye, and times when your hand itched for a weapon. You gave Elizabeth a chance and it's up to her if she takes it now."

She was quiet for a moment then she leaned forward and put her hand over his,  
"I know how difficult it has been for me, I can guess how difficult it has been for you, but it's as near over as damn it so I don't see why one of us shouldn't get some release from all the tension."  
He looked at her hand for a moment longer then turned his own over and wrapped his fingers around hers,  
"Why not the both of us then?" he replied softly.  
"You know very well why not, and don't say you don't. I could see it in your face a moment ago."  
He pursed his lips for a moment then looked at her with lurking devilry,  
"Saw what you wanted to see perhaps," he taunted her gently.  
She smiled back,  
"No Jack I learned the folly of seeing what you want to see, not what is really there, a long time ago. I don't make that mistake any more, no more than you do."  
His expression closed and she knew that he would not comment on this any further,  
"Might think that so, but it doesn't mean that it is," was all he said with a shrug.

Elanor knew when to let it go and she did so now, pulling her hand away and rising to her knees, wobbling slightly on the uneven mattress.  
"Unlace me then go find yourself some more accommodating company, there is still plenty of gold, and I promise that on this one occasion I will see that anything you might bring back with you is disposed of." She leaned forward and caught at his wrist, "just make sure you leave enough gold to salve my conscience if you leave anything behind you."  
Jack drew a deep breath and she could not have said whether it was uncertainty or anger, but something told her it just might be the latter.  
"Very keen for me to be gone, sure you haven't taken a fancy for a groom?" he said stiffly.  
"No, I just think you deserve some reward for your efforts Jack."  
He gave her a bright and false smile,  
"Thank you kindly ma'am, most considerate of you to show such forbearance towards my weaknesses," his tone dripped acid.  
Elanor just shook her head,  
"Jack! Will you stop being difficult, I'm not impugning your honour, nor your status or strength or resolve or whatever else you feel I am disrespecting. I'd say it to any man in your position, even my maybe ancestor if he was sitting where you are."  
"Think that makes it any better!" he said, the annoyance clear in his voice, "that you think all men fools who can be lead by the balls and tossed an amatory bone to keep them content?"

Elanor looked at him for a moment then the devil appeared in those angel eyes, she kept her mouth from curving with an effort that showed,  
"Well…. Yes. I have met few who don't fit into that category. But why should you protest when you make such a big thing of your whoring, though from what I've seen and heard of you where that's concerned I've know admirals who beat you hands down."  
"What! That's a slander."  
"Is it really? Seems to me that you are remarkably constant for a punter."  
"Punter?"  
"Sorry, patron of what one of my favourite authors calls the ladies of negotiable affection."  
"Constant?" he looked at her with suspicion.  
"You know very well what I mean, always the same ones and you tend to know them by name and spend time with them."  
"Do not!"  
"Yes you do, that's why they slap you. We both know it. So unlace this bloody dress then go and add a new one to your list of surrogate wives."

For a moment she thought he was going to explode, before, with a visible effort, he took control of himself,  
"I'd be seen, and it would blur the picture we have so carefully painted." He said with careful patience, "Would be foolish to ruin things at this late stage,"  
He got to his feet and waved his hands to indicate that she should turn around. When she still stared at him without moving he took hold of her shoulders and gently turned her to that he could take hold of the lacing on the back of her dress.  
"You can go out of the window," she said as he began to undo the ties. "I can change your hair a little and you could put on the kohl, in the dark no one would recognise you, if you think it is important that they don't."  
"I do think it. Fine thing if I'm seen shinning up or down the wall, make folk wonder about ….us. The risk is too great Elanor, I'd not want anyone to realise I've been here, for then they might look for her here and we cannot afford that. Might cost a lot of lives that little interlude and who is to say that mine might not be one of them? Pleasure is not worth the price."

He stuck to that line for the next twenty minutes while she shed her gown behind the screen, washed and then pulled on her nightdress, and when she emerged it was to find him already undressed and in bed. He watched her in silence as she unfastened her hair and brushed it out, then as she crossed to the bed he turned back the coverlet for her before removing himself to his side of the bed and blowing out his candle,  
"Sleep well' was his last remark before he apparently fell asleep, though she was sure he was awake as much of the night as she was.  
Eventually she did sleep, only to wake at first light to find her head propped against his shoulder and his arm laid protectively, there was no other word for it, across her. As she moved her head slightly his arm tightened and he smiled in his sleep and muttered something she was determined she hadn't heard right. After a moment of enjoying the warmth and proximity she edged out from under his arm and slid out of the bed, glad that it ended today, for both their sakes. As she sat at the window and stared down as the sleepy maids head towards the pump she wished more than he would ever realise that he had made another choice the previous night.

XXX

Now as she watched him stand at the shore line, stiff and almost angry, looking for the ship that he knew would not be here for many hours, she knew that he was avoiding her and any comment on the matter she might chose to make. Elanor wondered just how much he was regretting that decision, because it was clear he hadn't yet managed to explain it to himself.


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26 Things done and not undone **

The sea, he loves the sea and always has. From that first memory of salt wind on his face and the spray that made his mother wrinkle her nose and blink her beautiful dark eyes, to the desperate moment he looked down from the rigging of the Dutchman into the glorious, wondrous watery hell of Calypso's anger, he has loved the sea. But he doesn't always like it. Just like a woman whose gentle smile can hide a pitiless heart the sea can be the greatest deceiver of them all. He knows that.

Well maybe not the greatest deceiver, not if you know how to read the signs, for the sea runs true; know what she is really saying to you and you will fare well, but allow your own needs or wants to blind you to the truth of it then the fate you find you will have brought down upon yourself. Up on the crows nest Jack takes another deep gulp of rum and reminds himself of this.

He can't complain, after all it is a model he has always taken as being a fair one during his pirate years.

The sun is sinking now, a full days' sail behind them and land is long since vanished. Ahead of them the horizon has not yet slipped into shadow and as Jack stares at the night cloud just starting to gather behind the first pale shadow of the moon he admits to himself something that thing that cannot ever be admitted to any other, that he is afraid.

Not the first time of course, not by a long way, sometimes he thinks his whole life these past fifteen years has been a battle between him and it. "Close your eyes and pretend it's a bad dream… it's how I get by." The words he spoke to Beckett had taken him by surprise even as he said them and they echo in his head now bringing a grim smile as he sits, safe for the moment in this little nest of privacy. Those words cannot be forgotten because there was more truth in them than bloody Beckett ever realised. Fool and blackguard that he was.

Jack knows that he is not a fool, and nor is he a coward for he lives with the fear and faces it daily, never allowing any other soul to see it. But for that once, the day he left the Pearl to the Kraken, an admission seen by Elizabeth but bitterly regretted for reasons other than that, for Jack knows that was the moment Beckett almost won. That was the moment he almost became what others believed him to be. He tries to tell himself that it was the rum, for he'd drank more in those weeks that Jones chased him than he had done in his life before, but he knows that can't be the sum of the answer.

He still isn't sure what saved him, but he is sure that not returning would have killed him more slowly, but more certainly, than the Kraken. What shadows of himself would he have seen in the locker had he not returned that day? He shudders at the thought, as he always does. What was there was painful enough, though nothing that truly surprised him, but that…

Yes he is afraid, but that will not stop him, it never has before and he sees no reason for it to do so now. Except for the fact that he has never been this afraid before, at least he doesn't think he has, or not since the moment the black spot appeared on his hand. Maybe then he was if he is honest with himself, the terror that overtook him as Bill disappeared had near taken his wits from him. He shudders again as he thinks back to those few minutes of panic that sent him scurrying to beach the Pearl and seek the sanctuary of land. But land had failed him as it always had; only the sea had offered him hope since….. that time he didn't think about any more. Was he this afraid then? He can't recall any more.

But this fear is something more, for he cannot see the outcome of it, but he knows that maybe it has it never mattered quite so much that no one knows of it.

Yet he has already failed in that, for Elanor knows, she has looked into his eyes and seen it. The only consolation for that seeing was the fear that sprang to her own at the sight of it; she does not know what it is that he fears but she trusts his judgement and believes there is good reason for it. Elanor is not a fool either and she knows that only a fool is free of fear. Jack is comfortable enough with her knowing but he knows that no one else must see, Captain Jack Sparrow must be at his glittering best, and no one must suspect the doubts swirling in his head. For if they know then they might run, and though he knows there is nowhere to run to they may not believe that to be the case and if they try to run they may sink the world. So they must not run, and he must show no fear or doubt to make sure they do not.

Jack downs half a bottle of rum at a gulp or two and wonders which of the bad fairies it was that attended his birth, promising himself in slurring curses that if he ever finds out he will seek out said eldritch creature and run her through!

"I need to talk to you."  
Jack groans, he thinks it's in the privacy of his own head but can't be sure. He was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he didn't hear her coming, he swears again, at himself this time, for forgetting she can climb rigging as well as he.  
"What about? If it's Elizabeth on your mind then I'm not in the mood, and anyway she's safe enough."  
'For the moment; as much as any of us are,' he thinks, and this time he is sure that the thought is silent.  
"Not Elizabeth." She settles herself beside him, folding her long legs beneath her to make room in this cramped space.  
"Then what?"  
He knows he sounds surly but the taste of the fear of a moment ago is still in his mouth and the rum won't wash it away, it never seems to any more. He wishes she would go and let him come to terms with it alone and drunk. But he knows she won't even before she speaks again,  
"Lucifer's Sword."  
There is a faint shadow of hesitation in her voice and he knows he was right when the thought she saw his fear.

She sets a brandy bottle down beside her knee,  
"What did they tell you, those people back at that… place."  
"Who says they told me anything?"  
She sighs and hands him a full bottle of rum,  
"I thought we had got beyond that Jack."  
"Beyond what?"  
He can feel her eyes on him though he doesn't turn away from staring at the horizon,  
"Playing this kind of game with each other. I can accept you are annoyed with me, and maybe with reason, but not enough reason to put the lives of everyone we are about to embroil in this matter at risk for pique."  
He turns and gives her a long hard look and wonders if she really believes that this is what it is all about. If so then what can he say?  
She meets his look then suddenly smiles, and it's like the sun coming out after a storm threatens,  
"No it's not that is it? You are afraid and you don't want me to know. Why? Do you think I will go wringing my hands to Gibbs or Anamaria? So can we have less of the strong and silent hero please, it doesn't suit you."  
The thought occurs to her that in some ways that's what he always is, not hero perhaps but silent. William and Elizabeth might babble of their hopes and fears but Jack keeps his own counsel and few will ever know exactly what goes on behind those kohl lined eyes, not even Gibbs. She puts the thought away for discussion with Ariadne and returns to the matter in hand,  
"Tell me what they said."  
"Nothing." That much is the truth.  
She is silent for a moment then she picks up the brandy bottle, uncorks it and takes a long swallow,  
"Then what did they make known?"

Jack curses again, this time at her perspicacity and her persistence, but most of all at the faint and unexpected feeling of relief that she still wants to know. For all the difficulties of the last few weeks she is not planning to abandon him and somehow that is starting to bring more comfort than it should. He is still surprised to hear himself answering,  
"Barbossa, it's all to do with Barbossa."  
She smiles,  
"I guessed that much from your instructions to Anamaria, but how?"  
Jack continues to stare at the horizon and wonders how to explain, or even if he should, how to tell her what had never had words, for they did not speak in words, any more than they had shown him pictures in smoke, no it was as if ideas were planted whole and fully coloured into his head. How did he explain that, or the fear their ideas had managed to convey?  
"Jack," her hand is on his arm, "I'm from another world, another time, remember? What can be more impossible than that, there is nothing you can tell me that I will not believe if you swear to me that it is the truth."  
He turns his head and meets her eyes without a smile,  
"It about dyin' luv," he draws a deep breath, "ye see, dying's not so easy to put to one side, " his eyes go back to the open expanse of ocean around them, "nor, it seems, is the coming back."

XXX

They had left Tortuga three days before as planned, striking north towards the Atlantic and away from the storms that had come early this year.

They had spent a week before provisioning and making good the damage done by the first severe storm of the season , a wind and tide which had stirred up even the waters of Polly's bay and that had arrived a good two months before it might have been expected. Even the weather had not settled since Beckett's meddling it seemed, and as Gibbs watched the last canvas being repaired he found himself wondering if Calypso was seeking those who had abused her. At least on this occasion there had been no scrimping, for Jack, and probably the lady captain, had provided enough to purchase what they needed before leaving on the their task. He wasn't sure what was keeping captain Cavendish at their beck and call but she was free enough with her coin. When he had mentioned that to Polly she had cast him an odd look and said sharply that it was probably better that they didn't know, something he himself felt to be the truth but that didn't make him feel easier in his mind about what was coming. He could see the worry shading Polly's eyes and knew that she weren't easy either but she seemed to have no doubts that doing what Jack asked was the right thing to be doing.

As dawn strengthened towards day they had said their goodbyes and ridden the tide out of the shelter of the bay and towards whatever new challenges lay in wait, and with Jack behind it none of them expected it to be either easy or usual. The silent Barbossa was both a hint and a warning of what might be before them. Both Gibbs and Anamaria were on edge as they put the comparative safety of the island behind them, they had days of sailing to do before they would reach the rendezvous point and the rumours of scores of navy ships and other lurking armadas had seethed in the streets of the pirate port in the days before they left. The tales of treasure ships heading out of the southern Americas, enough to gladden a pirate's heart in the days before Beckett, were tempered by as many stories of vessels being boarded by the navy, and not always the British navy, and of crews harried and threatened. Not even fishing vessels were spared it seemed and more than one ship was reported sunk. Those who had experienced the harassment personally claimed that the boarding parties seemed to be looking for something or someone, thought no one seemed to have any suggestions about what or whom.

On the Black Pearl the promise of gold to come, and without a shot being fired, when they retrieved their wandering captain was enough to keep the crew, old and new, quiet; but there was no mistaking the uneasy feeling on the decks as they headed away from the sight of land. A long hard sailing was ahead of them, for they would stop only once to take on water and supplies before they met with the Dawn Chaser and took up whatever mad scheme Jack had in his head now.

Reaching that rendezvous was not going to be easy sailing, for, if what Anamaria said was true, then it was some ways off the trade routes and required a course that would risk both doldrums and crossing shallows against the wind, as well as navigating some of the weirdest waters on Gods' good earth. While there was no denying that fortune seemed to be smiling on them of late everyone aboard knew that it couldn't hold for ever. Why Jack should have chosen such a place to meet could only be guessed at but it seemed likely that there was a reason behind it, and that didn't bode well for the sanity of whatever their captain had in mind to do next.

Without Jack and his boundless confidence Gibbs was finding himself more prone to doubts than was comfortable, and the rum could only last so long. One thing to be glad about was that the captain had taken the notion and the time to teach Anamaria something about maps and courses in those dangerous months that Norrington had chased them around the Atlantic, for he had never been a reading man, map or book, and the their current heading would take them into waters rarely visited before and with few reference points to steer by.

Then there had been trouble enough but he had not felt the strangeness to come encroaching on them, now it seemed that it was seeking them out, for there was a growing sense of weirdness, a sense of eerie forces, of unreality, that sometimes hung around the ship, though he could not put his finger on the when or why of it. But that, coupled with the unmoving hulk of Barbossa lying like a beached whale in the great cabin, reminded him more often than he wanted that the Pearl had crossed to the other side with her rightful captain. Which in turn made him wonder if past events were … well…past..

At this point in his reasoning he usually reached for more rum.

It would have been worse, he admitted to himself, if there had been no one to share the worry with, but Anamaria knew his thoughts, had held most of them even before he mentioned them. Woman though she was she was a fair sailor and Jack trusted her, in as much as he trusted anyone. So it was with her that he sat and worried about Jack's plans, and tried not to notice the woman's body beneath that calico shirt while they did so. Though having met Calypso he was less unwilling to have a woman on board, for maybe a woman would better understand how to placate an angry goddess.

He and Anamaria met daily in the great cabin, the only place they were safe from being overheard, to speculate on why Jack was about….. whatever it was he was about. Both knew that it involved the Pirate King as had been but neither was quite sure why Jack had been so determined to see her settled before they took on the next piece of madness. Nor why he was so determined that no one, not even they, should know where it was that he had secreted her. Gibbs, remembering Jones, could only hope that there was nothing nefarious about his captain's intentions in that direction, for he doubted that young Will would react well were he to be betrayed by his lady love and Jack Sparrow, and they could do without another avenging devil haunting the seas. Anamaria might scoff, did scoff, at the idea that Jack might have intentions where Mrs. Turner was concerned but she had not seen him that day on the dockside when the Pearl sailed away and left him behind. Something in Jack Sparrow had reached a limit that day and it was as if he had put all his past behind him the way he had cut his lines to Scarlet and Giselle. Not that he had, and Gibbs wondered if Jack had always known that once he had been gone a week or two they would be willing to welcome him back, and with only a slightly sharper slap than was their usual greeting. Either way he couldn't get over the idea that Jack had no longer cared, that he was putting behind him the life that he had lived before dying, and though he had visited them since that time Gibbs was sure that the relationship between the three had changed forever.

Anamaria, when he confided as much to her after a rum bottle or two, had said it was only to be expected, for a man who came back from death could never look at life in the same way again. Gibbs had wondered what else in Jack Sparrow had changed in the maw of that monster and what he had lost on the locker shores. Whatever it were it had not been his wits, though it had seemed for a while that he might have done so. No, Jack was as mad, and as sharp, as ever, though it seemed he spoke even more in riddle than he had before; but it had to be owned that the lady captain seemed to have no difficulty in following him and his plans. Anamaria had cocked a knowing eye when he told her that.  
"Aye, well she is as mad as he is, and sharper than a knife. If she don't think him daft then I'm inclined to think that those who do might be mistaken." She frowned, "but it don't explain why he is bestirring himself on behalf of this one."  
She flapped a dismissive hand towards the silent pirate on the bed, if she had a womanly bone in her body then Barbossa's plight did nothing to stir it and she made no secret of the fact that she would not baulk if the crew decided to throw him overboard were it not for Jack's express instructions to the contrary.

Gibbs took a deep swig of rum and rolled it around his tongue as he considered that.  
"Aye, that thought vexes me too." He said eventually. "Owes nothing to the rotter so why bestir himself on his behalf? Mrs Turner I can understand, sort of, but Barbossa well, defies belief it do. "  
"Can not say what is in his mind, but I'll be bound that there is more to it than he telling anyone, and at the bottom of it is something that's good for Jack Sparrow!" Anamara replied tartly  
Gibbs gave a weary smile at that,  
"Goes without sayin' I suppose. Though there seems to be a mite more involved with bein' good for Jack Sparrow these days than used to be the case."  
She considered that somberly, then nodded slowly.  
"That's dyin' for you, not even Jack Sparrow can escape the effect 'o that however much he may wish it be otherways. Were never safe nor ordinary sailin' with the man before but its' got a whole lot harder, and for less profit, than it used to be."  
"Aye," Gibbs nodded, "Been an age since we don't anything that might be truly considered piratin'. " He cast a suddenly nervous look at Barbossa, "But it might be that he's doin' it because not doing it would be bad for him if you take my meanin'. After all they got one thing in common, and that is bein' brought back from the dead." He cocked an eye at his companion, bad luck at sea or not there was a lot of comfort to be had in sharing his worries with Anamaria, "and if that's the case…."  
"Then it be bad for us all," she muttered.

Gibbs nodded and took another swig from the bottle then handed it over to her.  
"Just as long as he ain't expectin' us to sail back to the locker", he muttered. "Twere not somethin' I'd want to be doin' again."  
The girl swallowed her rum at a gulp, brow contracting on a thunderous frown as her eyes drifted towards the frozen face of the once so called captain of the Black Pearl,  
"Pearl, she been there afore," she said slowly, " should not forget that. I'd not be so sure that isn't exactly what's in his mind."

XXX

They had descended from the crows nest and a fire has been lit in the brazier, the flames sending new shadows dancing around the pristine decks. There was no need for it, for the air was hot even this far out to sea and with night now fully upon them, and the wind like the breath of a panting animal. Jack found himself having to fight to overcome memories of those endless minutes in the Kraken's teeth. But there was something about the flickering flames that offered comfort that had nothing to do with warmth, the soft and spikey play of the light from them reminded him of other voyages and other days when life had been so much simpler and he had been able to damn the world and its dishonest 'honest men' to hell without further thought.

The ghost was silent as she generally was when he was around, but her constant presence was still betrayed by the shifting lines and the constant re-adjustments of the canvas. Jack wondered how even a ghost could so understand the ship's needs; it was almost as if the ghost and the Dawn Chaser were one. He sometime felt the same way about himself and the Pearl and it had convinced him that whatever else she might be this ghost would do nothing to harm the ship.

For the moment he was more concerned about becoming himself again than with the thoughts of a ghost. Jonathon Norrington had been enjoyable enough, though not quite as enjoyable as he had hoped, and he had served his purpose, but it was time he was put aside. It was Jonathon that he blamed for not following Elanor's advice of last evening, for he could not see any other reason for not taking up the offer. Truth was he didn't understand why he hadn't and did not want to speculate on the matter; no worry there for there were plenty of other things to be thought of. Though most of them didn't bear being thought of either.

They dined on fish grilled on the brazier with some berries and cream Elanor had managed to purchase before they left, and he and settled himself with a rum bottle close to hand. She had a brandy bottle at her feet as she set about restoring his hair to something he recognised as Jack Sparrow. Though he had newly resolved to keep her at a greater distance he found that the movement of her hands as she set free the ropes and re-braided it soothed and reassured him enough to enable him to drop something of his guard and try at some explanation of why this voyage was needed. Though he still found that his tongue didn't want to carry the words. Rum didn't free him as once it had but it still made things easier.

Jack concentrated on threading a bead onto a braid as he began to explain the inexplicable,  
"Calypso now she is a goddess see? But she ain't God, if you understand me."  
Elanor replied without stopping the movement of her fingers in his hair,  
"I think so, she is some lesser form of … other life. So what is she?"  
He smiled a bitter smile,  
"Never knew and not sure that I want to. When I first knew her she were just a witch of sorts, though I soon learned there were more to it than that, and more than I cared to risk being close to. When I first… had cause to visit her place I just thought she were young to have such power but as time went on and she got no older….. well then I knew to be wary, pleasurable thought time spent with her was. Never guessed what was truly at the bottom of her, nor why she so cared to please me."  
"She had another agenda all along?"  
"Must have done so, can't see how not given what had been done to her. But she knew me before I were what you might call officially a pirate and that might make a difference. Though I think that there were…. things she would have done anyways." He looked up and met Elanor's glance,  
"But the gift of resurrection is not given to her, not even in her goddess state. Far less so when she was bound in human form."

Elanor thought about that for a moment as she finished tying off a braid,  
"But she brought Barbossa back, " she said eventually, "at least that's Elizabeth's view on the matter, and you told me you had shot him but he still came to the locker looking for you."  
"Aye well… she brought him back… and… then again she did not."  
"Less of the riddles Jack," Elanor sounded calm enough. "What exactly did she do?"  
He finished with the bead and took another swallow of rum,  
"She brought him back to this world right enough, but there were something she couldn't do, maybe didn't know to do and in her not knowin' she brought his death back with him."  
"Meaning that he wasn't alive?"  
Jack downed more rum then raised an emphatic finger,  
"Meaning that he was alive and dead at the same time. Only her power held back his death darlin', let the corpse walk and held back the corruption. That power held back the effects of bringing him back too while she wielded it. But it was the power of a witch that did that, not the power of a goddess, and when she was freed, unbound, that witch's power passed with her physical form. Once free she gave the matter no thought and the spell began to fail."

Elanor thought about that for a while as she re-braided the thick plait at the back of his head,  
"So why didn't he fall into this trance or whatever it is straight away? Why didn't he just return to being a corpse. You said he fought the Dutchman in the maelstrom, so he was still alive them."  
"True enough, the spell had some resonance even after she fled human form, for it was bound in other things in this world, but as she became more herself and lost interest in the matters of humans her protection gradually dissipated, and as it did so death began to encroach on him again. He is still alive, that part of the spell that recreated his physical body, that part that is of this world, will not change, but without her protection then there is no longer anything to hold back the death she brought across with him. Without that those things that would have happened to him after death have resumed where they left off and there is nothing that can stop them. First they drove him slightly mad, for humanity ain't built for such knowledge, but now he is in both worlds the dead and the living, for his body lives but his mind walks in death."

There was a moment of silence then she shook her head  
"But why is that so important? Barbossa will gradually sink further into whatever kind of trance it is until it will become impossible to keep his body alive, he will die and pass back to where she took him from."  
Jack looked up over his shoulder at her,  
"It's not so easy luv. Tia Dlama, has opened a bridge between life and death, the two worlds now overlap at that point and who is to say what will be the outcome of that."  
She didn't mock him as he half expected instead she said quietly,  
"Yes I see. Two dimensions, two states of existence that should not touch are touching and there is nothing controlling their interaction. There are those in my world who would tell you it is all a matter of perception and that the world of the dead is probably no more a particle shift from the one that we can see. That there are ghosts and spirits all around us but that the phase shift prevents us from inhabiting the same world. The bloody quantum again, and if that is true and she has in some way disturbed the shift then who knows what it could mean."  
He nodded, raising his eyes to look beyond the rail to the indigo ocean,  
"Indeed that is a most important question darlin'. I mean… what does it mean for me…. us….who has done the same in a different way? Or for the Pearl? Or any of the others that made the crossing to the seas beyond the map."  
He felt the jolt though her hands that betrayed her shock,  
"Or, eventually for this world itself." she said softly. "Maybe that's how I arrived here, through whatever it is that Tia Dalma has left behind in her meddling."

Jack smiled uneasily, reaching up to hand her the tie that bound the braid she had just plaited.  
"Don't know about that, but it was made clear enough to me that for my own best interests, and those of the Pearl, I must close the door that Tia Dalma opened."  
"And to do that you must free Barbossa?"  
Jack wriggled his discomfort,  
"Don't know about that. What I do know is that this sword or whatever it is can be used to cleave his death from his life, to melt the two edges together and so to separate the two whatever they are back into different streams and shut off the flow of the one that should not be here. What it will mean for the old devil I don't know. Only that it must be done."  
"So he might die?"  
"Might I suppose, told you I don't know what it means."  
"Do you know what this sword is?"  
"No, they told me I will know it when I see it and that I will find the way to use it when I find it. The compass will take us to the location but they warned that taking possession of it might not be so easy."

Elanor looked down at him for a moment, his voice seemed sincere enough but there was something about the sudden tension in his neck and shoulders that told her he was lying, She yanked at the hank of hair in her hand and he yelped,  
"I don't believe you Jack. I think they told you more than that."  
He shifted on his chair that familiar wriggle of the shoulders that spoke so eloquently of his discomfort,  
"A story luv, nothing more than a story. Could not be true or else more than I may stand doomed." He growled his voice suddenly rough and hard.  
"So tell me the story."

He caught the steely note in her voice. That edge of command that came to her as naturally as it did to him, a tone that neither Elizabeth or William had ever mastered, nor yet Barbossa who relied on threats or punishment in much the same ways as Jones had. A tone that her maybe ancestor Norrington had off to a fine art as he recalled it. When he looked up it was to see beauty carved in stone, her face as implacable as the marble angels she so resembled. At that moment he wished so very much she was less angelic looking and even more that she was less steel willed. But in this mood there was no gainsaying her, he knew that, not if he wanted her continued support and co-operations, which he most certainly did.  
"Are you sure you want to know, really sure that you want to know?"  
"I want to know." There was no hesitation of doubt in her voice.  
He drew a deep breath and looked back to the sea again,  
"Well…. You see… it is like this…." He swallowed hard and closed his eyes for a moment,  
"You remember what you were saying earlier….about the devil's sword..."


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27: A Maybe Truth**

It had been the compass that took him there, or rather the search for something to barter for the compass.

Jack stared into the brazier's light, his memory leapfrogging over all the horrors of these recent years back to the terrors, the betrayals, that had started it all. To a time when he had not thought to see another year in, when everything was dark and even the Caribbean sun could not take the chill from his heart.

On the far side of the fire Elanor watched him, her face composed and expressionless as if she knew how much he didn't want the grief and desperation of those long fled years to be seen. Not for the first time he thanked something, somewhere, that she was no rich man's child. Not for the first time since she had hauled him from the sea he found himself being grateful for her understanding and her silent watching presence, the sense of a mind that neither judged nor excused. Grateful for eyes that saw beyond the flash and shine of a legend to the weary sailor beneath it, to a man who only wanted to fall in love with life again, but who was beginning to doubt that such mercy would be granted.

There was no point in hiding anything now and he found that, for once, he didn't want to.

Slowly, quietly, without expression, he told her the story from the beginning, and the beginning was long before he had rescued Elizabeth Swann.

XXX

He had sworn vengeance on Cutler Beckett, but even then, in those early days when bitter disillusionment still held him in its' grip, he had known that there were better ways of getting even than at the end of a blade. Beckett had used his own vice coupled with his prying, prurient ways, and his knack of finding out secrets, to insinuated himself within the East India Company to a degree that made a physical attack unlikely to succeed. But Jack had known his Achilles heel, the drive for wealth and power that sprang from not being who he thought he should have been, it obsessed him, made him a driven man, and attacking that was a far more satisfying way of avenging the wrong. A pirate could never do it but a rich man could, and even young and foolish as he had been then Jack had known that the one thing that could make the brand invisible was wealth, lots of it.

So he had set about becoming a rich man.

Of course it could no longer be done honestly, but there was no one to worry over, and the branding iron had burned the honesty from him, for he had vowed to himself to be dishonest in those dark and pain wracked weeks after his escape from the Company jail. He had been determined to build an empire bigger than the Company and from within the safety of it to destroy Beckett and the canker that succored him. But to his despair he found he had little taste for those dishonest things that would bring him sufficient riches to enact his plan,

The question had been, therefore, where to find enough gold to begin.

Tia Dalma had showed him the way, and until that day in the Brethren court he had never really understood why. It was she who had come and found him in Tortuga, burning with fever on a filthy blanket, a year and a day after he had sailed down the river to the sea on his way to confront Beckett. Maybe that should have warned him, for all the stories agreed that a year and a day was a special date. But he had been beyond thinking about that, or thinking about much at all. Those days were, and remained, a blur of rum and opium, and not all of it medicinal. So it might have remained, he might have become just another piece of flotsam tossed aside on Beckett's rise to power, the passing weeks wearing him to a shadow until some whore found him dead in a gutter in the warren of hopelessness behind the cock pit. The burn had healed on the journey to the Caribbean but it remained red and hot, and its anger left him prone to ague and fevers; as if some poison had entered his bones, seeping out at intervals to rob him of the youthful vigour that should have been his, there at the prime of his life.

It had been a hard time and he was not sure that he would have survived it alone, young and adrift as he was, not when so many people seemed only too willing to help him on his way to damnation. Without money or ship or protection, unfamiliar with the mores and ways of this buccaneer society and weakened by the frequent bouts of sickness, it would only have been a matter of time before he fell victim to one of the predators that lurked in every corner. His future would have been bleak and short had that happened.

But Tia Dalma had changed things, chasing away the human maggots that had fastened on him and nursing him for weeks on end, wrapping herself around him when the chills came and sponging him when the fever grew hot, and all the time keeping everyone else away by the power of her stare and the stories already circulating about her. At night when the lamps were low a steady stream of people would come asking her favour and skill, and he, tossing in half dreams on his pallet, had heard their pleading at the door and her incantations and wondered what manner of witch she was to hold so many people in her sway. But he was grateful to her for her efforts and when she told him that he was being bled by grief for his ship he listened.

Her it was that told him how to find Jones, and how to call him back to the seas of the map, and gave him hope again. Tia Dalma it was that told him what to say to gain the ferryman's agreement and how to sail on the Dutchman in safety.

It had all gone like clockwork, but almost the moment the Dutchman sank back below the waves, leaving him on the blackened decks of his resurrected ship he had wondered if he had done the right thing. Even so it was to Tia Dalma that he had returned to with his worries about Jones, and with his plans for revenge; and it was there, in her shack in the swamp, that he first heard her speak of the 'dial of desire', the compass.

It was there on one dark and hot night when the insects sang loud to the moon, that she produced it, the worn and battered case nestling in her hands so innocent seeming as she explained what it could do for him,  
"Knows ya hearts desire it does. Would show ya where to find the things you waant most."  
He had sat up and slid his arm around her shoulder, his hand drifting down her sweat slicked arm, a finger reaching out to touch the instrument almost fearfully,  
"What sort of things, exactly." He asked hesitantly, strangely fascinated by the thing despite its worn and weary look.  
"Anyting. Wat ever you want most at the time ya hold it."  
She had tipped it into his hand and laughed as the needle swung to point towards her,  
"See. Jack Sparra knows what him want, leastways for the moment."  
He'd grinned and she had laughed again and taken back the compass, putting it on the floor before turning her attention to supplying, most generously, what he wanted.

But later she had picked it up again and set it open between them on the sheet, her one hand covering the needle so that he could not see where it pointed,  
"T'will find ya gold, all the gold ya need."  
He tried to move her hand but she closed the compas so that he could not see the needle move. He frowned,  
"And leverage over Jones, will it find me that?"  
"That it will, if the time arrives that finding such leverage is the ting ya want most in the world."  
He had not been listening properly, only half awake, he had told himself later, otherwise he would have asked about the 'if' that should have been a 'when'.

As it was he gave her his most persuasive smile,  
"So will you give me the compass?" he asked gently.  
Tia Dalma shook her head with a smile.  
"Tat cannat be, cannat give such a ting away like an unwanted garment. Would nat serve. Nor can it be bought with coin for that would be to put a value on it and that cannat be done. It would be slighted and might extract a penalty."  
"So…." He had waited but she had not continued and eventually he had said the words she was no doubt waiting for, "How can it come into my possession? Can you lend it to me?"  
"Can nat do that either."  
"Then what?"  
Setting her head against his chest and placing thethe closed compass over his heart, she stared up into his eyes with a serious look,  
"Ya must barter it, and wit something of sufficient value to placate it."  
She smiled at his puzzled look but it was a gentle smile, sultry, and her fingers had been drawing circles on his belly in a manner that made it hard to concentrate long enough to get the words out.  
"What did you have in mind? Or perhaps I should rather ask what does it have in mind?"  
"A ring and a locket," she said softly.  
He'd had enough sense to be cautious but not enough to get up and walk away. Not then at least, instead he had stroked her hair from her face,  
"If it's jewels you want luv then show me the gold and I'll buy them for you, as many as you want."  
She had smiled again and moved her head into the curve of his neck so that he couldn't see her face,  
"These be special, are mine by right but were taken from me when I were too weak to defend meself."  
"Who took them?"  
"A man," she flicked a hand, "which one is of no matter for he is long since dead. But I have looked into the candle flame and seen where they are. You must sail to that place and retrieve them for me, they, and only they, are a fit barter for the compass."

She made it sound so easy and yet he must have looked uneasy, for her hand came up to stroke his face and her widening smile was at its most seductive,  
"Have I ever led ya wrong? Did I nat tell ya nat to return to Beckett, and did I nat show ya how to raise ye ship?"  
"Aye, you've never played me false."  
It was the truth at that time, for she had asked him not to go back to Beckett the day he left them here, her eyes dark with something he couldn't have put a name to. But he had not listened, he had been too angry to do so. The last time he had ever let anger take ownership of him. But that anger had exacted a fearful price; and it was true she had warned him that it might.  
"So do ya want the compass? Can find ya all the treasure ya heart desires."  
"Aye, I want it."  
She had snuggled closer to him, her hand moving down to caress his hip.  
"Ten you will fetch me belongings back ta me and trade them for it?"  
She made it a question but she could have been in no doubt what his answer would be.  
"If that would a be a fair price. I'd not want it to take against me."  
"Tis a fair price, only wan tat is."  
Her skin had been like silk against his own, and the gentle movements of her hands made his whole body sing, maybe that convinced him for he had pushed the compass aside and wrapped her in his arms smiling down into her face,  
"Aye, well, then tell me where to find these trinkets and I'll fetch them back to you and then we will barter."  
She had looked up at him with eyesas bright as the stars above the Caribbean Sea,  
"Aye, Jack Sparrra, ten we will barter."

XXX

Jack risked a look at Elanor at this point and found her eyes on him, her expression one of calm consideration. He had known few people capable of such detachment, such patience and acceptance and it reassured him to see it in now in her. No doubt she saw all the flaws and pitfalls that he now saw on looking back, but there was no mockery or surprise in her face, 'how many young men has she pulled from the pit of their own folly,' he found himself wondering. It was an uncomfortable thought, reminding him of the fact that she was a strange and terrible as Tia Dalma in her own way.

Best not to think on that.

He turned his eyes back to the fire and back again to the past.

XXX

So he had gone, taking the instructions she provided to find the way, and he had found the place just as she had told him that he would. Found the horn to summon them too where she said he would, just as he had that day with Elanor. Yet the moment they appeared he had been uneasy, for it was as if they had been expecting him, not just anyone but him, Jack Sparrow. But he had swallowed down on his disquiet and launched into her claim to what he sought, and all the time these quaint and backward looking folk had watched and smiled and seemed totally unsurprised.

Whole thing had been most odd and disturbing.

All the time there was a whispering at the back of his head that he had been here before, known this place, these people, before. Once, sometime. They had spoken, asked questions, probed his story, and he had understood them, though he could never recall where he had heard their tongue before, for all he insisted to himself that he must have done so. Then they had withdrawn into a huddle, their muttering seeming to echo around the sand blasted ruins like music. Second seemed like hours as he watched them, wondering what it was that they were debating. Finally they had come to some decision, or so it seemed, and they came back to where he waited and led him down into the deeper shadows of the inner sanctum, the secret place where they had met this last time. There they had sat him on something that looked more like a boulder than a stool and given him food and drink, though he had not been aware they had any such provision with them when they arrived. Behind him someone had played a stringed instrument not unlike a harp, and, though something set his skin crawling in fear, he had been patient as she had told him to be. But all the time he was haunted by the feeling that they had been waiting for him, and that they knew what he had come to ask before he had opened his mouth.

The sound of music had grown louder and the wine had turned his blood to flame and set the dust motes flaring like diamonds in the sun. When the world he thought he knew slid away to show the ruined place in its' long lost glory he had been barely surprised.

They had stood him before the ghosts, the ones decked in gold and gems, the ones whose eyes were like the night sky, and placed a casket at his feet. The lid opened, seemingly of its own accord, and on the silken cushion inside there lay a silver locket and a golden ring. They were pretty enough in their way, if you liked that kind of thing, but he could not see what about them made them worthy barter for the compass. Yet this was her price and so he must have them.

He looked up to see them watching him, waiting, and he had wondered how he would persuade them, for it was clear these things were valued. Yet when he opened his mouth the words poured forth of their own accord. Silken words they were too, words that spoke of love and loss and betrayal that could not be undone. The sentences strung themselves together like pearls on a fine necklace, the soft shine of them wrapping themselves around the pillars and rippling the golden pools. He'd always been good with words, and had loved them since a child, but this performance had surpassed anything he had ever thought himself capable of. Listening to himself, as if he were in another head, he heard the power of these words and vowed to himself that he would never forget that power; he never had and words had saved his life more than once. But, for all his skill with words, never from that day to the next time he had stood before them had he been so fluent, so eloquent, so persuasive.

Yet there was still the niggling feeling that the outcome had been decided before he had set foot on shore.

Not that he gave it much thought once they handed him the trinkets, though the glow in their eyes, a smile that was something so much more than that, remained with him in dreams for many years. He had set sail back to Tia Dlama with high hopes, the odd, shivery, feeling that more than that exchange had taken place, that something was set in motion that could not be stopped, he pushed to the back of his mind and gradually it was forgotten.

Until the day he had found himself returning there.

But whether the changes had begun there, as he sometimes thought they had, it had been a very different man who had returned to their ruined glory in search of answers. Yet, as with the time before, it seemed that they expected him. More worrying still it seemed that they had expected nothing else, as if they had always known that he would be the man he was, and he had the disconcerting feeling that they had known what story he had come to hear long before he had set sail to find them.

As he stood before them this second time, as he looked into those night pit eyes he wondered who they were. At his first visit they had shown him many things but not where they had come from, though the images that had poured through his mind had been as insubstantial and ungraspable as a sunbeam he had come away with the impression that they had come from a place far from the desolate shore on which their temple, if that was what it was, was now ruined and half buried. How many years past he could not guess, but the people in the dreams, if that is what they were, spoke of years beyond a man's imagining.

He had come here with those images creeping out of the deeper vaults of his memory, but the images they showed him this time drove all interest in their past away.

The world had faded away, much as it had last time, to leave only them and their past glory as real, while the chanting vibrated the air until it seemed thick as smoke. On the wave of sound he saw pictures form, moving pictures that insinuated themselves in his head taking over the role of eyes and ear. He saw the world then as if he stood on the edge of a cliff and looked down onto a beach below him, unseen by the people who moved there. It was a silent world, only the voices humming on the scented air could be heard and those voices spoke no words he knew, and yet he understood what was happening below him as if he were commanding it.

It was a battle between forces so evenly matched that neither could have the hope of winning. Nor would there be a winner, somehow he knew that, for neither side needed or wanted that to be the outcome. The battle was all there was. For all of time these two unnumbered armies would be locked in combat for the prize of knowing nothing more than which of them was right. Though some whisper deep in his mind told him that the right involved was an important one for himself.

But then time did not matter for these warriors, neither did fear of pain or death, for none of them were subject to such ills. Their armour burned bright as the sun at noon but some inner sense told him that protection was not its' purpose, that the perfect bodies beneath it, more perfect even than those of Elanor's engineered kin, could take no hurt from steel or lead. These warriors lived, yet they were neither men, nor women either, and they would not wound or die, nor sicken or age, nor would they even tire. The battle would rage until the stars fall to earth, and at the end of it the armies would still stand and the result would be weighed and a point proven for one side or the other. On that decision might hang the meaning and future of all that there had ever been.

Their war was fought across all time and all places, but once during this eternal battle, in that moment he was seeing, it touched this place, this world of men, and when the armies withdrew to fight on other battle fields they left behind them something that should never have been abandoned here. For one of the generals involved lost a weapon, a sword of great power, forged for battles and battlefields that no man could ever comprehend. In the struggle here that sword fell to the ground and was not recovered when they left. So it lay unnoticed, undiscovered, a sword that could set stars ablaze and send life pulsing though rock and stone, a blade that could cut a second into a thousand pieces and cleave life from death itself. A sword that could separate this world from the next one.

Lucifer's sword.

Down across the hundreds, maybe thousands, of centuries since it had remained hidden where it had fallen that terrible day it had been struck from the general's hand; it's presence unsuspected, unknown, but a powerful force all the same, bending and twisting the world that housed it but that could not truly contain it. Who could say what its' effect had been during the years of its' obscurity? Who could guess what it effect would be were it to be found?

But now he must find it.

The voices in his head were clear enough, now he must risk all and find it, and more than that he must wield it, though the thought of it terrified him.

There was no choices it seemed, the sword could not be left in its ancient resting place because Tia Dalma had opened a way for the world of the dead to come to the world of the living and the two could not peacefully co-exist. One must give way before the other and seemed that the world of the dead was more powerful, and only this sword could cut the ropes of the terrible bridge she had risked building. He had wondered if she had known what she was doing when she brought Barbossa back to free herself.

Yet it had started before then, when as Calypso she first took a mortal man and made him immortal by her love. That opened the first chink, without that first breach the curses placed by the ancient priests on the gold of Cortez would never have worked for they used the same path. But each time such a assault was made upon the separation of life and death the chink had grown wider, until Tia Dalma tore it open and risked the world and everything in it for her freedom. Now what she built had to be pulled down, her doing undone, for if it were not then the whole world might be dragged into the pit in which the treacherous pirate now wallowed, and each day that passed weakened the barriers that divided living and dead still further.

He had asked them what would happen if he did not, or if he tossed the pirate overboard and sent him to the mercies of the captain of the Dutchman, surely in his dying Barbossa would close the door? Their answer had been unwelcome but clear enough, it could not be that simple. Their response had been to show him what would result, and walking skeletons came no where near it. More sobering still, and more convincing if he had need of it, was the picture of the locker of Jones creating rising from the seas to claim one Jack Sparrow.

There was no choice at all it seemed. The sword of Lucifer must be found and its' blade wielded to ensure that the breach in the wall between this world and the next was mended.

Though in doing so he might banish William Turner to the other side forever. No more one days' might be the result if they succeeded. But if he didn't then there might not be a world for him to have his one day in,

And Jack Sparrow might be more damned than he was already.

XXX

It is almost midnight and the brazier's dancing light have long since sunk into a somnolent dose, yet the air around it seems hotter than at sunset plastering Jack's shirt to his back and chest and causing sweat to blur the kohl lines around his eyes. His voice is weary but insistent; the animation bled from face and body as if telling the tale has been a mountain climb.

High above him Ariadne still listens closely. She has already committed the strange tale to her memory for later consideration but her thirst for information is insatiable, and Jack Sparrow is a man who must be listened to closely if the listener is separate wheat, which is always there, from the chaff he wants you to hear. Ariadne watches too, every movement and expression recorded for later consideration; she knows her captain has reluctantly accepted what she has been told, now it remains to be seen what that will mean for future events. Ariadne is learning that it pays to be forewarned.

"We can't tell them luv, it might offend your sense of fair play and officerly righteousness, but we can't tell them."  
"No," Elanor's voice is low and somber, "we can't tell them."  
She is lying back on the deck, eyes locked on the stars, and Jack watches her closely and wonders what she isthinking about, wishes that he knew what she was thinking. Guesses that she is wondering what kind of madness she has strayed into, and he'd not blame her for that, he's had the thought himself. Most of all he wants to know if she believed him, for he cannot read it in her face. He has told her truth as he knows it, against his inclination but he has done it all the same, 'but', 'he asks himself 'why should she believe it when I find it so hard to believe meself'.

Her next words took him by surprise,  
"What would we tell them anyway? It's almost certain that what they showed you wasn't the literal truth."  
"You think they lied?" The idea was both intriguing and reassuring and he considers it hopefully for a moment or two before regretfully discounting it,  
"Why would they do that? No need for them to tell me anything at all, other than I must do it for me own good."  
She grimaces at the sky,  
"Not lied as such no, I don't think that. But I do think that they showed you something that's a version of it, something that they thought you might understand."  
Jack finds that mildly insulting and opens his mouth to say so, she seems to know that even though her eyes remain fixed on the stars, and she explains,  
"Allegorical, a representation of something you wouldn't understand in terms you have heard before. Or it might be that the story was first told to them that way for similar reasons."  
"Meaning what?"  
"That they, someone if you would rather have it that way, used a story, the basic principles of which you and they are familiar with, to explain an event that involved many elements with which you are not familiar." She sighed, "it's probably how many myths start, the desire to explain something that can't be explained factually in a way that the listener would understand. So the essence of the history is real and true but the wrappings and the language used is only there to try and make sense of something the recipient of the story cannot otherwise comprehend."

"Hmmm." The sound conveys both disbelief and annoyance.  
She looks across at him,  
"Come on Jack, think about it, you are not illiterate, far from it, in fact one day I'll get out of you how come you got your education, for I'm damn sure you had one, but for the moment let's just stick with the fact that you have been around the world a few times and know the stories."  
He stops and thinks back to some of the tales he's been told, some he's passed on come to that, and that's without the ones that Gibbs can come up with,  
"I suppose so." The admission is still grudgeing.  
Elanor smiles,  
"It's the reason for many of the great classical sagas Jack, and most fairy stories too, complex philosophical truths wrapped up in other things to make it more palatable, conveying ideas and knowledge about something in a way that's more …familiar to the people hearing the story."  
She returns to staring at the stars as if seeing answers in the blackness of the night,  
"Very often the subject matter is good and evil, right and wrong, some of the hardest things to get your head around when you are a child. But not only children, most cultures have some story or other that speaks of a battle between good and evil."  
"Aye, I had noticed that. Most have stories of Gods and Godesses too."  
"Indeed they do, and they are often remarkably similar, both across cultures and across time. Now you can take that to mean that most cultures need to foster some element, some understanding of 'good' and 'bad' in their members for their own protection, which may well be true. But it may also be that at some point a long time ago some battle between two powerful opposing forces did take place here on Earth and tha,t somehow, it got remembered by people who didn't understand it and so reframed it in things that made sense in their view of the world."

Jack considers that in silence for a moment before he sighs and looks up to the sky,  
"So their story might be just that then, a memory of some long ago battle that they can't explain between people that they didn't understand."  
Elanor just nods, leaving Jack to follow the thought to its logical conclusion  
"In which case Lucifer's sword is some artifact they left behind them. Powerful and dangerous and like nothing known."  
Elanor just nods again, knowing that Jack will spot the thing that has been worrying at her from the moment she first tried that comforting idea for size, a flaw she would rather push to one side but that she knows can't be pushed so easily. For some reason she would rather he said it than she did.  
"But," he says slowly and she knows he is getting there, "why would an artifact, left by some visiting army, for that is what you are suggesting they were, be needed to free Barbossa and break this bridge between life and death. Why would a weapon from people llike that be so connected with human death?"

Elanor sits up and heaves a sigh,  
"I know, that's what's been worrying me for this past hour. I can make the case that the whole story is some kind of race memory of a long ago battle and that its' got nothing to do with fallen angels, so far so good, but if I make it then I can't see how the sword will aid in Barbossa's case. I can just about imagine how it might separate one dimension from another, Ariadne and I had this discussion when we first came back from that temple, or what ever it was, but I can't see how that could link to death, and the severing one specific death from life."

Jack stares at her in concern.  
"But they were in no doubt luv, it must be done else it's the locker for me and damnation for the rest of the world. Would you run the risk of that or do we search for it all the same, knowing it might be nothing more than a story told to frighten children?"  
There is silence and in reflex he reaches for the tum bottle discarded and untouched at his side, and as he puts it to his lips he wonders if he should tell her what else he read in the map, but he holds his tongue.

For a moment the woman with the face of a risen angel is without expression, then with a sudden contraction of muscle she is on her feet,  
"We search for it."  
Then she crosses the deck and disappears through the hatch.

Jack leans back and stares at the moon and wonders if he has gone mad or if he is still in the locker, for as his eyes sweep the night sky he thinks he sees a woman in white out of the corner of his eye. But when he looks back there is nothing to be seen.

XXX

In the light of the moon she cannot be seen but the Lady draws back from the man on the deck all the same, spreading her fan to watch the shifting shapes in the pictures painted there. After a moment or two she closes it and tilts her head as if in thought, then, with a slight flash of a smile that sends a star falling towards the earth, she fades into the light.


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter 28 Making Sure **

Two weeks sailing and they entered the weird waters the sailors called Calypso's boudoir. It was said to be here, on the island of Bermuda, that the first Brethren Court enticed the sea goddess into human form so that they might bind her.

Gibbs had never managed to work out how the pirates might have done that, and when he had asked Jack his opinion all he'd got was a frown and a muttered curse followed by the one word 'Jones;. After that it had seemed best not to think about it any further. 'These waters had never been the same since, and that was true enough' he thought, for no where else in the world could the sea and winds, the very air itself, be so changeable, so spiteful and unfathomable.

But Calypso was resting easy at the moment, or so it seemed, that or she was elsewhere, for the waters were as kind as the sea can be, and there was no sign of storm or freak surge as they headed out of Bermuda having taken on supplies. Gibbs had half expected to find Jack already there before them but there had been neither sight nor word of him, a fact that made him wonder if the white ship was going to make the rendezvous, and what they were supposed to do if she didn't.

He said as much to Anamaria as they watched the sun sink on the last day before the planned meeting.  
"They'll be there." She seemed confident enough. "As long as Mrs Turner has not been difficult." The curl of her lip told what she gave for chance of that.  
By this point in the voyage Gibbs, not always wise to the ways of women he would be the first to admit, had realised that his second in command did not overly like Miss Elizabeth as was, but not even rum had given him the courage to ask her why. 'For so slight a body she can be mighty fierce,' he reminded himself. Her dark brown eyes, as dark as Jack's, turned towards the horizon, and her nose wrinkled in something Gibbs couldn't quite place,

"Still not sure why it was that he were so insistent that she must be settled now. What is it that he could not have waited a month or so more and let us get about this business sooner?" She jerked her head in the direction of the cabin, "if this must be done then it must be done soon, he's naught but skin and bone already, much longer and there will be no body to return his mind to."  
Gibbs scowled,  
"Pintel and Raggetti! I told the mutinous dogs they was to keep him alive, I'll keelhaul the pair 'o them! "  
Anamaria forbore to mention that maybe, if that were the case and knowing the men in question, he should have checked before now, knowing as she did what superstitious dread the sight of the man in the cabin wrought in Gibbs mind.  
"You will not, captain might not like it," Anamaria scolded, "and we will need every man jack we have before this business is finished, if we are going where we both think we are. Leave 'em be, 'tis not easy to get food into the old bastard when he don't know the spoon is there. These days they can't get much more than goats' milk and mashed coconut and a little lime juice down his gullet, and even that takes the two of them."  
She shook her head, "Barbossa not of this world any more, so what's food to him?"

Gibbs took a swig of rum at the unwelcome reminder of the situation,  
"Aye well, that's maybe true. Jack seemed powerful sure that he must be kept alive though."  
"So he was, but somewhat mum on the subject of why that should be the case." Anamaria said thoughtfully.  
Gibbs gave her a sly, sideways, look,  
"And captain Elanor, she said no more than that? When you were teachin' her what was proper? "  
Anamaria gave a small snort at the idea, or maybe at the folly of her of all people teaching anyone how to be a man's pampered pet,  
"Ha. That one is a closed mouthed as he is on things that matter. More like each other than maybe even they realize."  
"You think so?" Gibbs was dubious, "Very straight laced lady she seems to me, more like the Commodore than Jack."  
"And you think there was much difference between them? Give the Commodore a year as an outlaw and you'd see how much difference. You'd not get a penny between them, mark my words."  
Gibbs considered that,  
"Was pretty sorry for himself when we met him, and whatever charge you might lay at Jack's door you can't lay that."  
"True enough, but the Commodore he had little knowledge of what it were like for those not born to position," she smiled slightly, "he'd have mellowed with the learning of it to my mind."  
Gibbs turned the idea over in his mind for a moment,  
"Aye you might have the right if it, never got the chance poor bastard." He sighed, "thought that were of his own doin', can't blame anyone but hisself for that."

He took another swig of rum and looked towards the cabin door, closed against prying eyes as it always was these days,  
"But Jack now, he's not one for keeping secrets."  
Anamaria gave him a faintly incredulous look,  
"Jack Sparrow! Closest mouthed man I've ever known. Talks a lot it's true but his chatter says nothing of use most of the time, what's important stays locked up in his head. Knows how to keep his own counsel, even when he drunk, aye, and knows how to be patient, as does she."  
She cast a look around to make sure they were not being overheard,  
"But you and I, we know, there is only one place we can be heading on such a quest."  
"World's End. Seas beyond the map." Gibbs supplied the information then tried to wash the words form his mouth with a swig of rum.  
She nodded thoughtfully,  
"As you say, or somewhere close to it. But not the locker, Barbossa is not taken there, only Jones could do that and he has not been seen. Nor the seas of the other side either for she brought him back before he reached that shore. So somewhere strange and portentous, somewhere where life and death are dealt."

Gibbs looked at her uneasily,  
"I'd not want to be falling over that torrent again."  
His companion shrugged,  
"Doubt that you will, for my suspicion is that that route leads only to the world of Davy Jones making."  
She shot him a triumphant look,  
"Caught Jack pouring over that chart before the pair of them left, he'd no need for that if he knew his heading. But he don't know it."  
Gibbs frowned,  
"Compass could take him,"  
She shook her head,  
"Maybe, maybe not. Compass might not take him because he doesn't not know what it is that he needs to want, and if he want the wrong thing….." she frowned, "Jack has had enough dealings with weirdness to know that it's tricky and not so easy to find a way though, and that what seems to be might not be." Anamaria chewed a lip thoughtfully, "That were one thing the she, Captain Elanor did say, that in the world we seek the rules may not be the same as here, and that wanting the wrong thing might damn us all."  
Gibbs closed his eyes briefly then took another desperate swig of rum,  
"I suppose she didn't say what that damming might mean?"  
"Doubt that she knew as much, who would?" She cast him a considering look then she leaned forward and took the rum bottle form his hand helping herself to a deep swallow, then she wiped her mouth on the back of her hand before she met Gibb's look,  
"But I got the impression that she didn't just mean those aboard this ship." Anamaria looked uneasily towards the cabin, "But I'd not want Barbossa's fate to befall anyone one of mine.

He had a sudden vision of Polly and her children and muttered a heartfelt  
"Aye," as he took the bottle being held out to him,  
"So let's hope Jack knows what he's about, though if any man can untangle this skein of strangeness then it will be Jack Sparrow for he's known more of it than most."  
Anamaria opened her mouth to suggest that might not be co-incidence but the words were forestalled by the cry of sail and Raggtti sliding to halt beside them,  
"Spanish," he puffed, "Man 'o War by the look of her, fair bristling with guns she is, and taking a heading straight for us."  
Gibbs and Anamaria exchanged a brief look before she turned and headed for the helm as Gibbs roared,  
"To stations, and no shilly-shallying."  
Then, pushing all thoughts of the world beyond away, he set off to supervise the guns and, with luck, their escape of it for one more day.

XXX

Five days they sailed without event but with a growing tension all the same. Ariadne's watchful gaze kept them clear of other ships but they could not evade each other in the same manner, and each of them knew their current danger lay with the other. Every word they exchanged seemed charged with some meaning other than the one the words purported to hold, every moment in proximity to each other was stiff and wary. They had become used to being together and soon they would not be and the realisation made the pair of them uneasy. It was as if their past playacting had become real and this anticipated parting was the play.

They sailed as they had before, as comrades and fellow crew, and they talked of matters seafaring with all the ease of the past, but that aside Jack had become quiet, the glitter gone from his smile. When he smiled now it was softer and more uncertain, as if he were feeling his way with something that had become strange again, and all the lewd banter of their previous voyages together was gone, as were the suggestive looks and sly winks. Now he spoke to her in much the same terms as he had ashore, the only difference was that it was with the respect granted to a fellow captain and not a wife. Though on a few occasions, in the evenings when they had eaten and they sat and talked of her world and his and anything else to keep their minds from where they were going and what they were about to do, he managed to achieve both. It was those occasions that made her look at him sideways and with a hint of concern.

For herself Elanor only knew that he must go, but that she would miss him more than she might ever have thought possible.

It was on the third night after they rejoined the ship that she finally discovered why he had felt the need to settle the matter of Elizabeth before they sailed for the Sword. She had asked him if the people of the temple had given him any idea of what might happen to Barbossa once the Sword had been found and used.  
"Not much," he said with a wary smile, "just that he might live or die but that if he lived then his ghosts would leave him."  
"His ghosts?"  
"Aye, seems he lives surrounded by ghosts and though his body lives in this world his mind has returned to death and the ghosts of that realm are more real than anything else to him."  
"So he might live or he might die, but how will that affect anyone else?"  
"Don't know," he raised his eyes in ironic disgust, "they were interestingly unforthcoming on that matter. Only thing they seemed interested in was that by severing his ties with one or the other of the two worlds he inhabits so the bridge between these two worlds, the way opened by Tia Dalma, will be closed. There will be no more passage between the two."

The final sentence was accompanied by a suddenly sad, and almost guilty, look and it was then that she understood,  
"No more passage…. That includes Will Turner does it?"  
The sad look faded and Jack regarded her with his most inscrutable expression.  
"Don't know luv, they didn't say, but it seems likely. That arrangement was established by Tia Dalma to serve her amorous purposes, and with the rip mended then maybe there won't be a way for him to return."  
"Leaving Elizabeth alone."  
He nodded, that close to sad look again upon his face,  
"Leaving Elizabeth alone. Nothing new in that o'course, plenty of wives wave their husbands off after their wedding never to see them again, and as many wish they had, or ….. hadn't. If you get my drift." He blew out a sigh that fluttered his whiskers,  
"But given all else that she has lost … well ..it seemed a tad harsh to leave her where she was, without friends of her own kind and her child without the benefits a father would have wished for his child, a father like young William anyway."

She gave him a considering look, the matter of fathers was always a difficult one to discuss with Jack, yet it had to be said,  
"But you said your father was keeping an eye on her?"  
"That I did, but I'd not necessarily consider that the best protection, if the mood took him he might decide to go visiting, then again he might forget where he had left her." He looked slightly shifty as he said it and catching her disbelieving look his mouth twisted in annoyance and he hurried into speech again. "  
"Anyways, the matter of the heart had to be settled before we could set about…" his hand fluttered his unwillingness to say the words,"…our next objective. Not safe with her whatever happens and I needed to be easy in me mind about that before…."  
He stopped suddenly and shot her a hard look,  
"It is safe in your strong room is it not? I recall that you said you would not be taken, you still of that mind?"  
"I am and you know it. I've no choice. If have to destroy the Chaser then it will go down with us."

Jack sat back and looked at her in silence for a moment, then, with that unpredictability he was famed for, he surged to his feet.  
"Let us be sure of that shall we? I'd not want to think that she had tricked us at the end."  
"She didn't trick us Jack and we both know it. Sit down and finish your drink."  
A stubborn, almost mulish look settled on his face,  
"I want to be sure Elanor, what faces us is bad enough and I want to be sure about that at least."  
She met his eyes and saw steely determination there and so, with a sigh, she got to her feet,  
"Oh very well." Then she brushed passed him and headed for the hatch.  
He followed her across the decks, down the stairs to the below decks quarters then watched in silence as she placed her hand on one of those locked doors he had never managed to open and watched wide eyed as the door slid away at her touch. Another set of stairs and another door and they were onto a gangway with more locked doors, from behind which he could hear strange humming noises, like many hives of bees, and then they were facing another door with a different look about it. This one she placed both hands on and stared at it as if there were something behind it that could read her mind, and perhaps there was for he heard a heavy sound , like a coil of chain landing on a deck, and only then did she reach forward and swing the door aside. Behind that was a barred door and beyond it a room not much bigger than his cabin lined with drawers and chests and all of them neatly stacked with boxes of varying size but similar appearance. On the far wall was a case of what looked to be pistols, though they were the strangest pistols he had ever seen for their muzzles were long and elegant but their stocks were wide and plain. His eyes roved over them registering that none of them had any cocking mechanism and some had no obvious trigger.

"Eyes off Jack, they are staying where they are."  
He turned to see Elanor watching him with a knowing expression and a hint of humour.  
"Can't I just…..look?" he said with wide eyed hopefulness.  
"No, nor can you 'just touch' either."  
She turned away with a smile at his disgusted look and pulled the chest from the shadow of a larger one,  
"Here it is." She reached into the shadows again for the key and held it out to him,  
"Want to open it."  
He put out his hand, fingers twitching, then a look of uncertainty flitted across his face and his finger stilled. Slowly he drew his hand back, the uncertainty becoming anexpression of slight distaste.  
"Think I'll pass on that," he gave her a shamefaced half grin, "Don't seem proper somehow, not knowing what it is. Besides I've seen one before, Jones that was, doubt that Will's is any different," he looked thoughtful, "although hopefully a little less of the fishy persuasion."  
He edged closer and took the chest from her hands,  
"But best to be on the safe side,"  
Leaning forward he tilted down his head and put his ear against the wood, reassured to hear and feel the steady thump of the contents he straightened up with a sigh of relief,  
"Well it's there then, and it sounds happy enough."

His eyes wandered around the room again his mouth curving in a smile as he saw the flask of water they had brought back from the fountain of youth sitting in a deeply padded container. Besides it was a pile of gold and jewels, some of the treasures she had raised from the seabed all those months ago. If this worked out as he hoped then he would persuade her take him back there and show him how the bottled air worked, and then they would go down together and harvest more of the scattered treasures of Isle de Muerta.

But for the moment they had other matters to attend to, other treasures to protect. He watched silently as she slid the chest back into the shadows, edging a little closer to that fascinating weaponry as he did so. He got just close enough to see that the case had no discernable lock, but he had no illusions about how hard it might be to open, even assuming he could get back down to this room without her knowing.  
"Forget it Jack," her voice was both amused and resigned, "It will be a truly black day when I break those out."  
He met her eyes and saw only sombre truth there and then found himself shivering slightly at the idea, for he thought that her black day would be a terrible one. Suddenly he found himself hoping that those strange weapons never crossed this threshold. With a dismissing shrug he led the way out of the room feeling only relief when he heard the locks drop into place.

XXX

"Does he suspect?" Adriane was learning inflexion and there was a hint of conspiracy in the words.  
"No, I don't think so." She paused for a moment. "As far as I can tell it passed muster."  
"You were correct in assuming he would not wish to open it. What would you have done if he had?"  
"Not a lot, but I was sure that he would not wish to see it. " She leaned back, crossing her arms across her chest, " in some ways Jack is a very proper man and there are some things he just doesn't so, manhandling the beating heart of a friend seemed likely to be one of them."  
"I wonder why?" Ariadne sounded curious.  
Elanor frowned as she thought about that,  
"Probably too much like voyeurism," she decided, "and I'd take a bet that while Jack would indulge in most forms of sexual play in person he would be outraged of you were to suggest that he spied on someone else while they indulged. I'm not even sure he would bother to find an excuse." She looked at the wall as if watching the man in question, "I think that you'd just get that expression of distaste, the one that twists his mouth and wrinkles his nose, and then he'd go all distant and 'I've nothing to learn from anyone else so why waste the time when I could be practising myself' on you."  
"You think that he dislikes perversion?"  
"I don't know, and I've no desire to find out, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were the case, depending on what you mean by perversion of course. He might worry that he would screw a goat, if his sick bed ravings were anything to go by, but I'm not sure that he would when he came to it. The concern itself suggests that he wouldn't." She grinned in Ariadne's direction, "and somehow I can't see Jack, hedonist that he is, getting any fun out of beating or being beaten, or out of any kind of pain. His pleasure centres seem to be perfectly correctly wired to me."  
The smile faded and her expression became grim,  
"I rather expect he's known too much of the real thing being used against him to view pain or helplessness in a recreational manner. However mild the chastisement might be there would be no escaping the memories." She sighed deeply, pictures she had hoped she could forget pushing their way up into her consciousness, "only people who do not understand being helpless and at the mercy of those wishing to hurt you can see such things as romantic," she said bitterly.

As if knowing what memories were suddenly stalking her captain Ariadne moved back to their original discussion.  
"You are sure that this is the correct thing to do?"  
Elanor gave herself a slight shake, pushing the images of a blood soaked village school in the back of beyond from her mind with some effort.  
"I can't see any other way. Jack doesn't see it of course but what holds true for Elizabeth Turner also holds true for him."  
"You think he might give it up if something important to him was threatened?"  
"No I don't. I think far worse than that, I think he wouldn't give it up and that he would take the consequences, and that, if he lived to see the matter through, he would never let himself rest for it. He might think that he can let Elizabeth and her child go the devil with a shrug of 'needs be', but his action on that ghost ship suggests that he couldn't. Oh, Jack will stand by and let people take the consequences of their own actions with equanimity right enough, granting them the right to go to hell their own way, but when the damage is the result of his actions then I suspect that it's different. In that he is an honest man and that is his curse, given this world and his life. He will take his own blame just as he expects everyone else to shoulder theirs."

There was silence for a moment then Ariadne revisited their earlier conclusion,  
"So we must relieve him of the obligation."  
Elanor nodded and got to her feet.  
"Yes, for I would not wish that decision on him. Find me that deep chasm we spoke of Ariadne, and one close by, something on our route or not far off it. One deep enough that the floor will not be reachable for so many centuries that if that chest is ever found it will be past the point at which it matters."  
She crossed to the door,  
"When you have found it adjust our course and let me know. I will need to take precautions to keep him out of the way while we do the thing."  
"How will you do that?"  
Elanor smiled slightly,  
"One good thing about the rum of this time, Ariadne, its' awful taste will cover anything!"  
"But he is not as susceptible to alcohol as once he was, not since drinking the water of life, you are aware of that."  
"Yes and so is he, if he would admit it, but he won't. He'll just be glad to have a hangover again, and by the time he does wonder about it there will be other, more immediate, things to think about if I'm any judge."

XXX

The Intrepid's lookout called sail just as the Black Pearl was coming about, turning to broadside the oncoming Spanish ship. Though the Pearl was the smaller and more lightly armed of the two of them she was far faster and more manoeuvrable, and, more importantly still, it appeared that she had no lust for the Spanish ship's treasure and no desire to engage her at all.

As Hathaway raised the glass to his eye the Pear let loose a volley from her midship cannons before turning quickly to present only her stern, her full load of canvas catching at a wind that was suddenly all in her favour. Whoever was at the helm had some talent for the black ship's prow shifted a little and she rose on the swell, the returning volley of Spanish ball falling short. He cursed, after all the weeks they had sought this ship they must find it in the presence of a Spaniard. He was faced with an impossible choice, either he risked the Pearl being hit, or boarded, or he joined forces with her against this symbol of a foreign power while war was not formally declared. He trained his glass on the Pearl seeing with relief that she was not flying pirate colours, in fact she flying no colours at all. But that was not a situation that continued for someone on board the black ship realised his dilemma and eased it, for as he watched the union flag was raised.

For a moment the Spanish ship hung back, allowing the Pearl to widen the distance between them, before her captain decided the prize was worth the risk, and turned in pursuit. With another curse Hathaway gave the order for full canvas and set his heading between the two ships, gambling that the Spanish captain was no more ready than he to be the one that started war between the two empires.

There approach was seen for the great ship seemed to hesitate for a moment before coming around and taking a course to pursue the Pearl. The Spanish captain would not fire on the Intrepid it seemed but for the moment there was no need to do so for she was some way behind if he could outpace her and stay within gun range of the Pearl he must hope to take the pirate when there could be no witness.

Mouth set in a grim line Hathaway gave the order and joined the chase.

XXX

The moon was high and the sea just shades of grey under the night sky with no way to judge that the depth had changed. Only Ariadne's clever eyes could span the level of the sea bed and they told her that it had dropped away, a sheer sided cliff that even her vision couldn't bottom. Somewhere down there lay undisturbed sands, dark pastures grazed by strange creatures that had no need of eyes for there was no light to make use of. Elanor watched the heave of the waters for a while, letting the wind pull her hair from its braids and stream it behind her like a fast flowing current and indulged in a few last moment considerations. Up by the helm Jack lay wrapped in a sleep as tranquil as this balmy night, he'd not wake until morning by which time they would be back on course and only hours away from meeting the Black Pearl, and down at her feet sat a wooden chest carefully wrapped in shock absorbing, water resistant, packing secured by a weight belt.

With a sigh Elanor squatted and picked up the chest, sitting it on the rail for a moment and watching the moonlight play across its surface. Then she drew a deep breath and laid her hand upon the curve of the lid,  
"Rest easy William Turner" she murmured, "you will be safe now, no divided loyalty or terrible decisions for you. No one will ask either of you for more than you can give now, and if there are curses to be hurled for that then let them be at me who comes from somewhere else, and frankly doesn't give a damn" She smiled, "Maybe we will meet one day, but forgive me if I say that I hope it will be later rather than sooner. Farewell till then."  
Then with a quick movement she pushed the chest over the rail and watched it fall. It disappeared with barely a splash.

Ariadne took up the watching as the waters closed over it and watched it until it was safely beyond her vision and well past the reach of men.

For Elanor there was a sudden sense of something watching, something that was strangely satisfied. But though she scanned the decks and then the seas there was nothing to be seen. Yet she no longer believed that was necessarily the case and with a shiver she crossed back to the sleeping Jack and her brandy glass.

In the shadows beyond the moonlight Calypso turned to the Lady and smiled.


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter 29 Battles avoided**

The Spaniard had the advantage in the yardage of canvas could muster, and the number of crew to tend it, but she was heavy and slow to manoeuvre. Perhaps her captain did not know that his quarry was the only ship that could outrun the Flying Dutchman but he soon discovered that with the wind favouring her the way it seemed to she could outpace them, and that all he could do was stay between the fleeing ship and the Intrepid and try and keep his quarry in sight.

Hathaway could find it in him to feel some sympathy for the unknown captain, after all the sight of the black sails pulling away towards the horizon was one he knew well. Watching the heavily gunned vessel come about, looking clumsy beside her prey, he found that he was less concerned about this formidable Spanish lady catching the Black Pearl then he had been when first the chase had started. Now that the black timbered ship was beyond the range of the Spanish guns he did not think her in much danger, he didn't think she would come within their sights again and not only because of her impressive turn of speed. The wind had shifted slightly and with it in this direction the Pearl could out run Jones himself it was said. Hathaway had not been surprised when the wind moved to give the black ship the advantage. His suspicion that someone or something was at work to keep Sparrow's ship safe grew stronger with every passing day, there was no other reason that he could think of to explain her extraordinary fortune, nor her ability to disappear in places where it should not be possible for a ship to remain unseen.

Therefore he was not surprised when the squall sprang up, nor at how the mist of rain and spray obscured the fleeing Pearl from view. With a sigh he continued his course but with little expectation that the quarry would be there to be found by the time they emerged into good weather. He exchanged a rueful look with Groves as he passed the lieutenant's station, but the truth was that he was somewhat relieved; at least this time he would not have to go into battle to keep Sparrow's beloved ship from enemy hands. As he progressed down the decks, nodding to his officers as he went, he spared a moment of gratitude to whatever it was that was keeping that ship safe and in doing so sparing this crew the death and injury that any battle would have brought.

At least this time.

XXX

On the Pearl Gibbs watched anxiously as the Spanish ship fell behind having spat only that one round of canon fire in their direction and without the Pearl having to fire her own guns. He could see the navy ship too but he knew that she'd not catch them either, not now. As the distance between them increased he breathed more easily, looking up at the full bellied sails making the most of the favouring wind. But he felt unease as well as relief, for it was not the first time the wind had changed unexpectedly to their favour, nor the first time had that change had spared them the need to engage.

The sudden squall, with its shrouding mist, roused his worries from their day time half sleep. Deep within his superstitious soul suspicion and dread was stirring, for if Calypso was exerting herself in their favour it would be for some reason of her own, and Gibbs was beginning to wonder what game was being played, and how and when the debt would be called in.

As the mist thickened he strode to the wheel, watching in silence as Anamaria's small, strong, hands gripped it with authority, coaxing nearly as much from her as Jack himself would have done. Off to one side Cotton watched closely but with no sign of anxiety, a sure sign of the mute man's confidence in the ability and determination of the girl.

She cast him a short glance as Gibbs approached but decided he was no risk, for Cotton of all men knew how to keep his own counsel.  
"More strangeness," she hissed, "weather like this coming this way is not natural, not here."  
"Aye," Gibbs replied reluctantly, "Not earthly weather I'll be bound."  
That earned him a sharp look from both Anamaria and Cotton, but he seemed not to notice.  
"Naught to do with Barbossa though, not by my reckoning," he continued, "Something is takin' our part and I'd not think anything had that much regard for that treacherous dog."  
"Seems unlike 'tis true." She stared at the pall of white before them, "let's hope that whatever is so inclined to be helpful extends that help to making sure we don't come across another ship in this fog. Best not toll the bell and betray ourselves to those that chase us, at least not for a while."  
Gibbs nodded, his expression grim,  
"Aye. But I've a mind that no harm will come to us, though can't tell you how or why it should be."  
Anamaria gave a cold smile, her eyes still locked on the prow and the veil of mist beyond it,  
"Jack Sparrow, that's answer enough. Whatever it is he's about there are those that want him to succeed, and will keep us whole to assist in that. Those that have the power to make it so."

Gibbs thought about it for a moment then nodded,  
"That's how it is to my mind too. Though I'd sleep easier if there was some notion of who and why."  
"Calypso you think?"  
"Maybe, but that don't explain why, for she has no love of pirates and Jack be a pirate whatever else he is."  
The girl chewed at her lip a moment then shrugged,  
"True enough, nor does she have the even temper needed to put her anger aside for another good. But who else? Jones has not the power, even if Jack has the leverage there that some think he has."  
He stared at her for a second or two, and got as far as opening his mouth to correct her, only recalling that she knew nothing of Jones fate, nor of Will's, at the last moment. Exchanging a wary look with Cotton he took a deep breath and practised a little, unusual, subtlety,  
"Who says Jack has leverage over Jones?"  
That earned him a sharp and knowing look,  
"Was the talk of Tortuga. Sailors came looking for him and spoke of his hold over Jones in their cups, seemed to think he might hold Jones heart. I'd not put it past him neither, canny man is Jack Sparrow and if there is a way to escape the locker he would be the one to find it."

"Was it so?" He looked back at the ships still on their heels, though not snapping at them any longer, "well, that's as maybe, don't make it true. Clear enough that some believe it though. He shot her a sharp look,"Say ought else did they?"  
She shrugged,  
"Talk was that he would be well rewarded for working that leverage for others. Not that anyone believed that, who would trust the word of a kings man? No doubt there were those who would have handed him over to those with gold if they had known where he was though."  
Gibbs nodded slowly, his eyes still fixed on the Spaniard,  
"Aye, I'd not argue with that," his mind drifted to Sampson and his cudgel and boot knife, "though they might find that others become a mite unfriendly if they steer that course. Jack has friends as well as enemies, and there are plenty who would not forgive a man who sold anyone to the king, any king."  
The distance between the Pearl and pursuers seemed to be increasing and he found himself thinking longingly of the rum barrel,  
" But if that's what's in the navy men's minds they'll not be giving up any time soon, so lets hope that whoever is protecting us goes on doing so."

Anamaria looked forwards towards the thickening mist, something in Gibbs voice had told her that he was keeping something back, that there was some part of the story she did not know. It was not an idea she found to her liking and she set the back part of her mind to working out some way of discovering what it was, but for the moment she resolved to pretend she had no suspicion,  
"Seems like they will for the moment," she said. "Let's hope that this business with Barbossa is resolved quickly and we can head for safer waters.  
Gibbs muttered 'Aye' as he strode away but she could hear the uncertainty in it.

Heading down to the hold and the call of the rum Gibbs wondered if Jack knew what the navy men thought, and if that was why he had taken such pains to hide Mrs Turner away in so proper a place. With a navy or two seeking her nowhere known to pirates would be safe, and the Keeper would not have thanked him for taking her to the cove, not when the pair of them had brought battle to the doorstep once before. But Jack would not want Will to dance to their tune as Jones had been forced to. And look where that had led them all! He found himself hoping that Jack had covered his tracks well.

XXX

The sun was peeping shyly across the horizon when Jack woke, with a thumping head that was somehow both familiar and unexpected. He lay still for a moment trying to recall where he had been the night before, but all he could remember was a leisurely meal, a fish stew he thought, and a long conversation about tactics over a glass of rum. Well maybe two…or three.. glasses of rum. Nothing had happened to account for his present headache nor the sense of disorientation, at least not as he recalled it. Not that this was the first time, for there were plenty of other occasions where he had woken in a similar state to find the evening had been far from quiet. With a sigh he threw off the soft blanket and rolled onto his side, squinting down the decks towards the wheel; but the deck was as empty as the ocean and there was no sign of Elanor, nor sound of her ghost.  
'Abandoned me in disgust no doubt,' he thought wearily as he rolled onto his back again and rubbed a hand across his bleary eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose in an attempt to stave off the headache and remember how he came to be waking here rather than in his bunk.

'Did I do or say something I shouldn't have done?' was his next thought, as he pushed himself into a sitting position, 'not seen me to me cabin so I must have offended in some way.' He sighed to himself, 'How much have I got to make right with her this time?'  
Carefully he eased his shoulders and stretched his neck, they ached from sleeping on the deck but it was no great pain or other sign of injury and only the sluggish pace of his thoughts, and the soreness of his head, betrayed his over indulgence of the evening before. Or did it? Odd if it did so, for it had been weeks and more since he had been so affected by rum. He had thought that the water of life had put paid to both the benefits and the consequences of over indulgence and, until this moment, he had assumed that state would continue indefinitely. Which posed the question why this time?

With another sigh Jack struggled unsteadily to his feet and stood, swaying gently, his brow contracted with a frown as he struggled to gather his thoughts. While it was a relief to think that rum might once again prove to be the friend of forgetting, some niggling thought kept on that it might not be as simple as that. Not on this ship.

He rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully; 'seemed a mite strange that his susceptibility, never as great as many thought, should come on him again so suddenly, and with no sign that anything else had changed. The mirror told him that the water continued to do its' work, though the changes were gradual enough to be nigh on imperceptible to one who saw them every day. Why then should their effect on his sobriety suddenly change?'

If it had.

But there might be other reasons for his fragile state might there not? Elanor had her own secrets to guard and she was an ocean away from being as simple and easily read as Elizabeth. Jack smiled wryly to himself, there might be things she wanted to be about without his eyes upon her, and if he were she and wanted to do something unseen what would he do? Why he'd do what he was thinking she might have done wouldn't he? Get his companion out of the way for a while. So if it weren't the rum, just if, then what might it have been?

His finger explored the back of his head carefully but it seemed whole, as did his neck, no bruise or swelling, so not a blow then. But why would she need to resort to something that crude when this ship was so well stocked with wondrous things that would do the trick? Those little white pills for example, the ones she had given him during his fever, they had certainly made him sleep. Her strong room too had held boxes of treasures that might do the necessary, and put them with rum and … he winced and rubbed his eyes again, well he couldn't cry' impossible' not when he'd done it himself, and more than once. What he could do then so could she, had he not admitted that some time ago? Pirate or not the lady captain was more than capable of making a frontal attack and doing so with ruthless efficiency; if she wanted him out of the way then out of the way he would be put.

Lucky for him that she didn't share Mrs Turner's lack of resource or imagination, for if she had then he might have been waking up in chains.

Question remained why? Jack crossed slowly to the rail, squinting against the early morning light as he stared towards the horizon. Nothing seemed amiss and as far as he could judge they were on course for their meeting with Pearl, so it was not that she sought to avoid. What, then, was it she had not wanted him to interfere with? Couldn't be anything to do with those fascinating weapons, not when she knew he couldn't get into the strong room; nor yet the gold for the same reason. The chest? That was as securely held as the rest so it was not likely to be that either. So what? The thought nagged at him like an unpaid tapster but his brain refused to rise to the challenge, it would have been maddening if he hadn't been too tired and rum…. well ….something… afflicted to become maddened.

With a grimace he turned his eyes to the sky. Looked to be an hour or two before they could expect sight of the Pearl so breakfast would be welcome he decided. At least his stomach seemed calm enough whatever the cause of his lassitude might be. On that thankful thought he turned towards the below decks hatch with some spring returned to his step, coffee, yes coffee would be good. Maybe a rasher or two if any remained. That brought a stray thought and a frown, seemed likely they would need to provision before they set off on this quest of theirs, for he doubted that Gibbs would have thought of everything needed, even with Anamaria's help. They were headed a long ways north where habitation was thin and food scarce, water too come to that, though he had noticed that water was never short aboard this ship. One day he would discover why that was the case but running out was a risky way to go about it.

"Jack, the Pearl is in some sort of trouble again."  
Elanor's voice brought him up short as she appeared as from nowhere behind him, he span on his heels and glared at her,  
"What do ya mean again," he demanded a sense of irritation taking hold of him, the way she talked it was as if she forgot he was a pirate and therefore expected to be in trouble as matter of routine.  
The lady seemed unimpressed by the snap in his voice, just shrugging and giving him a jaunty smile,  
"What I said. This time she has got two ships on her tail and some strange weather to go with it."  
He turned and scanned the seas, before dragging his glass from his pocket and scanning to the horizon, the seas were empty.  
"How'd you know? There no sight of the Pearl or any other."  
Her smile widened slightly,  
"Ariadne can see round corners, and over horizons. The Pearl is about three hours sail away, but as I said she is not alone."  
Jack cast her a curious look, noting that three hours was a little longer then he had expected, but said nothing more as her smile died and her voice took on a serious note,  
"We can't make the rendezvous until she has lost those ships."

He opened his mouth to protest, then squashed the words with a moue of annoyance.  
"With that I must unfortunately agree. Can't set off on this matter with prying eyes on our tails." He frowned as the rest of her words came back to him, "What do you mean by strange weather, can your ghost see even that? What do you call strange weather anyways."  
"Yes she can. Changing winds and sea frets where they shouldn't be is what I call strange weather."  
She came closer, standing toe to toe with him, her face set and her eyes hard,  
"What is going on Jack? This isn't the first time the weather has turned somersaults to save the Pearl. Who or what is behind it?"  
He shot her a false smile  
"Cant say luv, would be lying if I said I knew." His look became one of deep concern, "and you know I'd never lie to you." He said winsomely.  
That brought a look of appreciation and slight snort,  
"Of course not. How could I ever think such a thing?"  
He grinned at her and she turned to look towards the sea,  
"But on this occasion I'll believe you because Ariadne doesn't know either. However this is stretching co-incidence too far, there is something out there that seems concerned to keep your ship safe." She looked back towards him, "sooner or later we will need to discover what."

Jack spread his arms in an expansive gesture,  
"As always I am in agreement with you darlin'." He stepped closer and put his hand on her arm, a wheedling note entered his voice and his eyes became watchful, "But not just this moment eh? Other things to be about for the moment and I for one am content to have something else on our side."  
He watched her closely as she considered him, only relaxing when she shrugged,  
"Can't argue with that." She said, "Help that doesn't ask questions is to be snatched at in the current circumstances." Her expression became troubled,  
"I wish we knew a little more about what we face out there."  
"The ships?" Jack gave a dismissive wave of the hand, "Navy no doubt and the Pearl can shake them without any eldritch help, though maybe not as quickly."  
Elanor rolled her eyes,  
"Don't play games Jack, I'm not in the mood. You know very well what I meant."  
He save a sigh of mock sorrow and fixed her with an earnest look,  
"Ah, well there I can't help you Captain Cavendish, for I'd be lyin' again if I said that I knew." He took her wrist and pulled her around, drawing her hand through his arm as they had walked as Mr and Mrs Norrington, he pulled her slowly towards the hatch,  
"Map is no help, nor is the compass, will take us there, at least I think so, but will not tell us what faces us. Nor were the people of the temple much help on that, as well you know. They talk of swords of devils as I said, but I'm as one with you in hoping that was not to be taken as the literal truth. Swords of damnation are things I would like to keep at significant distance."  
He raised a finger to forestall the acid comment he could see was coming, and smiled his most charming smile,  
"But as we don't know, and can't know, there is no profit in more wondering, now is there? However there is profit in breakfast."

He pulled open the hatch and bowed her before him. As they began down the steps he reached forward and put his hand gently but firmly on her shoulder,  
"and when we have eaten you can tell me what it was you wanted to be about all unseen last night."

XXX

The mist didn't clear for some time and when it did the seas behind them were empty. Anamaria heaved a sigh of relief and checked their course, they had made a slight detour but not as great as they might have needed to make if the weather had not favoured them in that way. She left Cotton at the wheel and hurried down to the great cabin to check the charts before making a course adjustment, well aware that these waters were strange to her, probably to Gibbs too. A far as she could see there was deep water and no hazard bar the possibility of other ships between them and where they would meet the Pearl. After so many weeks away from his beloved Pearl Jack was no doubts champing at the bit, watching the horizon for the first sight of them, but there was nothing that could be done about that. He would not thank her for risking the Pearl's precious hull to shave an hour or so off their delay.

She cast a wary look at the silent Barbossa, what was it that Jack thought to do for his old advisary, for she could see no way the man could be saved except through death, and his death did not look to be far away. She stepped hesitantly to the side of the bed, suppressing a shudder at the sight of wide pale eyes staring sightlessly heavenwards, the blanched shrunken cheeks. What horror was it that he walked in, and why was Jack stirring himself to save him from it? She cast a look towards the little monkey crouched on the pillow, keeping company with its silent master as it did for much of the day, only the pile of shells and discarded husks testimony to the fact that it didn't share his fate. A strange sense of sympathy stirred at the sight of the animals pinched expression, the worry and sorrow written large in eyes that had never been intended to show such feelings. Anamaria touched a hesitiant finger to the small bent head, smiling slightly when a tiny, leather lined, paw came up to grasp it,  
"Jack says you have no time for him, nor he for you, " she said quietly, "but he'll do his best for the old devil whatever the reason, and his best is often good enough."  
A short burst of soft chatter was the response and she smiled again,  
"Let's hope this is one of those occasions for all our sakes."  
The monkey gave a half hearted grin and another burst of chatter then snuggled down onto the pillow again, tail curled tightly around its little body as if to ward off the cold.

Anamaria nodded and gave the little creature one last caress, though she could not have said what moved her so,  
"I'll set those lazy curs to fetch you a meal, " she said softly, "no reason for you to starve too, will not help him."  
Then, clearing her suddenly constricted throat she before she opened the door, she returned to the wheel yelling an order to Raggetti as she went.

XXX

They had dropped anchor more than two hours ago, at the appointed place for the rendezvous, or so Anamaria claimed. Gibbs took one look her face, her mouth a tight line, and the set of her shoulder that clearly betrayed that she was spoiling for a fight, and decided to accept that as fact.

Not that he could blame her for her tetchiness not when his own nerves were wound as tight as a merchant's purse string. The rest of the crew were catching some of it too and he'd had to threaten one man with the brig already. As he watched the horizon he had to admit that he would be glad to see Jack back on board. Odd thing about Jack Sparrow, for all his vague airs and strangeness he was a captain when it came down to it, and while he was no sailors idea of a harsh man he could get instil respect in a crew faster than any other captain Gibbs had sailed with, at least when he wanted to. Gibbs had never figured out how he did it but he would be very glad when he was back aboard and doing it here.

As the sun rose higher over an empty sea he began to wonder if something had gone wrong. Somehow it had not occurred to him before now that the pair of them would not be here at the appointed hour, no hint of doubt that they would succeed in their venture had crossed his mind until this minute. But what would they do if it had gone wrong? Where would they go with the navies of Europe after them, and what would they do with Barbossa? Perhaps Jack's body was even now been committed to the sea, or a paupers grave, hung from a tree in some settlers backwater. A memory of that Turkish prison came back to him and he shuddered, Jack had said little enough about it but what he had said had turned the blood to ice. Maybe his friend was this moment being hauled to some ramparts somewhere to be hung in chains.

Anamaria, coming up behind him, saw his look and had little difficulty in guessing his thoughts, after all her own had been pretty similar this last night.  
"They'll be here soon." She said with an ease she didn't really feel.  
Gibbs cast a look over his shoulder,  
"Aye course they will."  
His words trailed away and he looked down at the rail, shoulders hunched fingers tight around the blackened wood, he drew a deep breathe then turned on her as if in anger,  
"And what if they ain't, what do we do them, tell me that?"  
"He'll come, slippery as a fish is Jack Sparrow and bright as the mid day sun. He'll be here, mark my words."  
Gibbs turned back to stare at the horizon his brows drawn low in a frown,  
"That's as maybe, but I've been remembering…" he drew a deep breath, "twice now she's near done for him and once succeeded, maybe this will be the second success."  
"She?" Anamaria quieried.  
"Miss Elizabeth that was, Mrs Turner now. Saving her was not a clever trick, not for Jack. More'n bad luck at sea she were. Maybe this time…" his voice died away.

"True enough." Anamaria replied after a moment of thought, "but he's not alone this time is he, there's the two of them involved and the lady will be no passenger to my mind. Captain Cavendish now, she'll not let him be taken; and I'd be betting that she is more than a match for the Governor's daughter."  
Gibbs nodded but his frown didn't ease,  
"I'd be in agreement on that right enough, if she gets the chance. But Jack…. Well, 'tis plain enough that the lass brings out the reckless streak in him."  
Anamaria leaned on the rail and stared into his face with open curiosity, it was rare to get Gibbs to discuss Jack or Elizabeth Turner in this manner.  
"Why?" She asked bluntly.  
Gibbs slowly shook his head, still staring out to sea.  
"Don't rightly know; other than he saved her life. That and the fact that her lad is the son of man he called friend. Maybe she reminds him of someone, or maybe she just reminds him of his past. Jack weren't always a pirate remember, even though he's the Keeper's get." He remembered Shipwreck cove and an item his friend had taken to wearing on his belt when they left, "mebbe she reminds him of his mama. Who can say? Reading Jack has never been easy and where Elizabeth and Will were concerned it were nigh impossible."  
He turned and looked at her,  
"I'd say that Miss Elizabeth ain't lost her taste or talent for trouble yet and there is a lot that can have gone wrong. They were on shore mind, and Jack and shore has never been an easy mix. Amongst respectable people no less, and you know what that means?"  
"They'd hang him without a second thought."  
"Aye, and then go home for tea. If they find out who, or what, he truly is…"

Anamaria put a hand on his arm, steadying him by the touch and the reminding of where they where. Gibbs was not an imaginative man, nor one given to thinking much about others thoughts, but he was not stupid and he was Jack's friend; that he had come to these doubts so late in the day did not make his worry any the less. He'd be fine once they caught sight of the white ship, and if they did not then she would need his strength as well as her own to take them forward. For the moment all she could do to help was tell him what she had told herself,  
"No reason that they should, not unless he has the poor luck to meet someone who knew this Commodore whose name he borrowed. 'Tis not so rare that he couldn't get away with claiming it for his own even if they do, and Mrs Turner she'll support him in that, if only for the saving of her own neck. Jack, now, he's got fancy enough manners when he wants, and he's passed as a gentleman before now, you know that. "  
For a moment he was silent then he nodded slowly,  
"Aye." He cast one more look at the empty horizon then nodded again, "Aye," he repeated more strongly.  
Anamaria removed her hand and turned towards the sea as he straightened up,  
"Well, no time to stand her jawin' best see that everything is trim before he comes aboard."  
Without another word he strode away.

But it was another four nervous hours before relief arrived and it was close on noon, and some time passed the appointed hour, when they first saw the Dawn Chaser on the horizon, sailing under full canvass and showing a turn of speed that the Pearl would struggle to match. Anamaria took a moment to wonder again how so large and powerful a ship could be crewed by a woman and a ghost, or why that woman would wish that it should be. The white ship dropped anchor some distance away, too far for the curious and superstitious crew to note the empty decks despite the spread of canvas. Jack crossed to the Pearl in a boat and his scowl as he clambered aboard sent Pintel and Raggetti, who had shimmied up in supposed greeting, scurrying back to their stations without a word.

His mood seemed to match his expression and Gibbs and Anamaria exchanged a look as he barked orders to weight and anchor and prepare to get underway even as he took his first step towards the wheel. With an impatient flutter of fingers he banished Cotton and took the wheel himself, compass open in his hand and the black look still in place. As the sound of rope and canvass told of their movement he looked up and back, the dark look suddenly tinged with uncertainty and something close to fear. Eyes narrowed he watched until the white ship unfurled her sails and prow rising against the swell started after them, then he breathed out with a heavy sigh some of the tension leaving his shoulders. With a jerk of his head he indicated the Cotton should take the wheel again and tossed the course setting over his shoulder before he sauntered off.

But the swagger didn't cover his tension and as Anamaria watched the white ship take up their course she wondered just what it was that had gone wrong.


	30. Chapter 30

Usual disclaimers still hold.

Chapter 30

The water slipping beneath them was already growing colder, and the wind stretching the canvas had taken on an edge. Around them the swell grew, wave tops higher and troughs deeper, the white rime of surf and spray reaching towards the decks an early reminder of other things yet to come. Though the storm season would be barely begun in the Caribbean it was clear that summer's hold was failing as they crossed the 60 degree line.

The sky was clear but pale and the blue of the earlier sea had already changed to a less friendly green as they moved north, and though they had donned heavier clothing standing still was now a chilly business and few of the crew stayed on deck if they had no call to. So far there had been no heavy weather, nor had there been any sign of ice, but another week of sailing and there would be one or the other, or maybe both. The seas would become less predictable too, the winds stronger, and the first ice floes a new risk, even over deeper water. Then, Jack knew, he must surrender the lead and become the follower, and though the thought was enough to send him into scowling ill humour he would not risk the Pearl unnecessarily by refusing.

That knowledge chafed like wet leather, but it could not be denied that the Chasers' ghostly eyes were much better than any human's, and clearer than any glass allowed too. Nor did he doubt her when she said that of the two the white ship was less at risk than the black one, that the wood of her hull was by far the stronger of the two, being engineered in much the same way as its captain was; that it could cope with an impact with hidden ice that would sink the other ship. That being the case, and being far from a fool Elanor would not claim it if were not so, not with her ship at risk, it made sense that she would mark the line of safety and they would follow. But that, though obviously to their advantage and so to be desired, did not make the necessity any more palatable an action in Jack's eyes. That she had simply assumed that he would see it in the same light as she did, and so act on the intelligence of the course, did not make it any easier either.

Well… maybe it would have done if it hadn't been for the ….other matter.

Jack pulled his coat tighter around him as the wind's playfulness turned spiteful for a moment, but he remained at the rail, glass unused in his hand, staring down at the green waters with a frown. Why was it that he couldn't let that matter go with a philosophical shrug as he had so many times before? That he couldn't do so worried at him when he had nothing else to do, wearing at his temper and sharpening his tongue with those around him when perhaps there was no call for it. After all it was neither Gibbs nor the crew that he wanted to growl at, but the one to blame for this mood was where he couldn't get at her, 'and if she had been to hand I would not give her the satisfaction!' he told himself furiously.

He looked skywards and sighed his regret as his current frown sent the youngest of his crew scurrying away from him as if he feared the lash should he pass the time of day with his captain. 'Get yerself in hand man,' he scolded himself. ''Tis not the way to command the kind of obedience you may need before this matter is done with.'

But though he carefully smoothed the anger from his face the thought continued to eat at him, both the event and his inability to shrug it aside. After all it was not the first time it had happened, now was it? Had he not taken ridicule, aye and mockery and slander from her maybe ancestor; and from many a man and woman before him? That he had, and without as much as a second thought when he needed to. Did he not know that the very ridicule they flung at him gave him leverage against them? Of course he did, him not being a fool. Was he not Captain Jack Sparrow, a man who knew how to play the crowd without being played, a man who always had himself well in hand, however out of it they might be? Yes, he was. So why did this time flick him so much on the raw?

It was not as if he hadn't had recent practice now was it? Had he not sailed from death itself, and even into battle, with a man who had left to him to die of thirst, and called him coward, and done it without barely a cross thought? He was Jack Sparrow, was he not, a man who knew the pointlessness of most feelings enough that he had managed to forgive the girl who had left him chained to a mast to be swallowed alive?

Why then did…. Her…, here he always ground mental teeth for he found his mind would be force him to think her name, Elanor's ….perfidy, her apparent distain, bother him so? Elizabeth had not spared him similar disregard, and that had been more open, yet he'd not felt in any way bruised by it. So why did this lack of trust on Elanor's part cause such ….anger? He'd been distrusted before had he not? Even when, as was the case now, he had done nothing to deserve it; and she at least had not beaten him about the head with an oar to prove the point.

So why? Why did he replay that scene in his several times head every day, picking at the scab of it? Why should the memory of her bland look, the humorous tone and her half smile as she said it, 'What was I doing? I don't know what you are talking about Jack', not even bothering to try to hide her untruth, still caused him such gut twisting anger. She had been lying, he knew it, she knew it, and he knew that she knew that he knew it. It had been nothing more than she intended. There had been no moving her on the matter either, no matter what he said. Even when it was clear to her that he was not play acting this time, and that he was truly angry, she had not shifted her ground.

He stilled suddenly, the chain of his thoughts veering off from the normal rut as he recalled a moment, a look, fleeting but there, and realised that she had not been so unmoved by his anger as he had persuaded himself to believe. For a moment something, some thought or feeling, had flitted through those beautiful eyes of hers as they stared each other down. Something he couldn't quite read, but something that gut instinct told him was not pleasure. Even so she had not changed her story; she did not intend to tell him and therefore she would not.

He knew he should admire her resolve, but this time he couldn't bring himself to do so, even though he was honest enough to know that he might well have tacked the same line in her place, well…. depending on what it were that he had to hide he might. He felt the frown pull at his forehead again, felt his fingers tighten around the glass, unable to deny the thought that be that as it may it was no excuse, no excuse at all.

Jack sighed despondently as another thought chased the angry one away, maybe that was at the root of it, the knowledge that she was treating him as Captain Jack Sparrow, that creation he was so proud of, when he didn't want her to. That and the knowledge that he probably would not treat her in such a way, not now. For if he had to do something…well underhand, even piratey, then he would expect to her to understand the need and support him.

His mouth tightened at the bitterness of the thought, he had come to respect her without realising it, but it seemed that his respect was not returned. Damn the woman!

With another muttered curse his snapped the glass open and sought consolation in the empty horizon.

XXX

Off to his right Gibbs saw the captain's expression and the irritable gesture and sighed, Jack had frowned moren he used to these past few days and for once he had given no indication as to the cause of the frowns. Not even with a belly full of rum.

But then rum didn't seem to ease Jack as once it had, nor did it keep the bad dreams at bay these days. More nights than ever he wandered the decks, watched the stars and the advance of morning, only difference was now he rarely had a bottle in his hand. Not that anyone seemed to have noticed, any more than they had noticed the look in his eyes when they settled on the white ship. Gibbs had and it both worried and grieved him to see such confusion and such anger in that look; for he liked the lady captain, trusted her too, at least as much as any man of his callin' could, and he would have sworn that the Jack did too, until now. But he knew that something had stirred a rare bitterness in Jack, and that something was currently behind them, for it could be no where else. Whatever were eatin' into Jack it were not Mrs Turner, or so it seemed.

Jack had spoken freely enough on that matter, though he had been adamant that no one but himself and Captain Cavendish should know where the lass was. The news of her breeding had reconciled Gibbs to that, for he'd not want to have to explain to the captain of the Dutchman how he had betrayed his chile while in his cups. No, the many sins of Mrs Turner had ceased to cast any shadow over Jack; that matter, like the lady herself, was put behind him and he'd not pine nor grieve overly for what was past. Jack had learned to slough off such weakness to survive, just as he had learned not to repeat the mistakes of the past, something Beckett had discovered about him a mite too late to be of use.

It were not the past that was eating at Jack, it were the present, and maybe the future. For which no sane man could blame him. Not with the lesson of Barbossa before them. Another factor in their discomfort that was, for it didn't help that Jack couldn't go and hide in his cabin, take solace with his books and charts and curse her loudly in private. Every time he entered the cabin Gibbs saw him shiver slightly, and who could blame him with the ever present reminder of what they were about a'layin there all staring and silent, and Jack with memories enough of death to contend with?

Gibbs turned his eyes to the sky, the blue had faded to pearly grey today and the sheen of it was muted, barely reflected in the cold green of these northern seas. The sun was just a pale shadow softening the clouds closest to it, but it had no more power nor effect than that. The golden furnace that baked the Caribbean was as far behind them as those blessed islands and this ghost of it no longer had the strength to even warm the air.

They were well north now, such lands as they might find naught but frost blasted rock and stunted furze, and only ice and snow lay ahead of them. All in all it was a clear and a bitter reminder of that sail to the locker, all of which made Gibbs uneasy. Only the fact that the map had taken them south to the locker and not north gave him any comfort at all, for he was less convinced than Jack that whatever the hand that aided them it would or could save them if they found another waterfall at the edge of the world.

Not a thought for a sober man and he pulled his flask from his pocket and took a reassuring gulp of the contents, then pushed the thought away.

He knew that many, Jack included, considered him a fanciful man, and he'd not deny the charge in the normal way of things, for there were more in heaven and earth than those such as Beckett would grant, he knew that in his bones. But he never bothered himself with wondering about that which he could not change, nor with imagining that which mortal man could not fathom. Such thoughts only bled the spirit, unless you were a clever man like Jack which he knew he weren't. No, he'd face whatever came at them but he'd not spend energy in anticipating it, unless it was to be prepared for it, and what they sailed to now… well …. Seemed like that no mortal thing could prepare them for it. But if there were a hand protecting them then he'd take a bet it were a righteous one, and if that were the case then things would be as they were supposed to be. Long ago, before Beckett came to search them out, he had decided that Jack Sparrow was in this world for a purpose beyond his ken, and that a man with half an eye on the good of his soul would do well to remember that. For himself he could not imagine that a man who could risk so much in such a manner for those not his kith and kin could be anything else but a tool of some other power. Were not Tia Dalma, or rather Calypso, it seemed, so it must be some other, but he did not doubt it were there. Even the captain's relationship with the sea goddess proved his point, for of them all only Jack had seemed her equal.

He took another gulp, were something odd about the Keeper too, now he came to think about it. Odd and macabre, for what kind of father gave his son his mother's head to wear? Made his skin creep that had, and though he no longer shuddered at the sight of it hangin' on Jack's belt he could not avoid a feeling of unease. Smacked of tales of the old Greeks that did, or of the ones even older than that. Tales it were probably better not to think of now, certainly not without emptying this here flask.

"Was a mermaid I tell ya."  
A familiar and unwelcome voice broke across his thoughts, and he turned to see Pintel headed across the decks towards the cabin, a flagon in his hand.  
"I thinks you'll find it was a kind of whale."  
Raggetti was following behind him with a bowl.  
Pintel stopped, hand on latch and rounded on his mate with a scowl,  
"Whale! Who ever heard of a fish singin'?"  
Raggetti seemed unconcerned by the look or the scathing tone, his own face taking on that expression he got when he was about to say something the likes of him shouldn't know,  
"No reasons why they shouldn't, got mouths ain't they? Maybe Calypso decided she'd like a bit of music now and then. Now she's back in her rightful metier so to speak."

As usual Pintel responded to Raggetti's comments with barely contained rage,  
"Oh, and I suppose she went to la di da concerts in that swamp o'hers did she? Harpsichord and flute or some such. Eh? Got a taste for it no doubt. That what yer sayin?"  
Gibbs watched as Raggetti reached over his friends shoulder and pulled the door open, apparently oblivious to Pintel's mood,  
"All I'm sayin' is that if she wants them to sing no reason why they shouldn't."  
The cabin door slammed and the voices were gone.

Gibbs sighed and pushed his flask away, starting down the decks towards Jack. No point in worryin' about what was to come, not when he'd got a pair of ex-ghosts for crew, a captain back from the dead, a breathing corpse in the cabin, and a lady captain behind them, one who hailed from some world even Jack couldn't imagine. What ever lay ahead of them couldn't be much odder than that.

But it might be as well to try and find out what it was that was nibblin' at Jack before he made life moren usually difficult for everyone.

XXX

Elanor watched the black sails straining in the wind and wondered when they should make the switch. The ice was close now, and it would probably be best if it the manoeuvre was done in daylight and with a good margin for error, but she'd not do it before the necessity was accepted by them both. Tomorrow then.

That Jack hated the need for her to take the lead was obvious, but he would not allow such a sentiment to blind him to the necessity. Not with the Pearl the stake. But that necessity must be making him a devil to sail with, and there would be little that poor Gibbs could do about it. She could only hope that no one mentioned the word mutiny in his hearing at the moment, he was rumoured to be a compassionate captain, at least by the lights of his place and time, but that reputation might not survive this journey if she didn't manage to make it right with him.

Elanor turned her viewer to the decks and the Pearl's captain and first mate, both now gathered on the foredeck. Poor Jack, she had no desire to make the situation worse than it was. He'd put up with it but she'd not expect him to like it. Jack's ability to subordinate his less subtle responses to the needs of reality, and to take his more unhelpful emotions off line, was one of his characteristics that she admired about him most. It was one of his most redeeming traits and one that in her more sombre moments it caused her to grieve the loss of what he could have achieved had this been a different world.

But it wasn't a different world, and how he felt about it didn't matter, what was... was, and they had to deal with it, even though his level of annoyance had taken her by surprise. She wished they could have avoided that anger, and if she hadn't made the mistake of underestimating him then maybe they could have done. Underestimate him she had done though, and it had not been one of her finer moments she had to admit, for she had seemed unable to make it right again. The only excuse she could plead was fatigue, that and the genuine desire to spare him the risk of making a decision that, whatever the circumstances of its making, would crucify him. However she couldn't expect him to know that or forgive it even if he found her out.

She had thought there would be no need, that he would take her obvious lie in good part, that her denial would be countered by some snappy comment about pirates perhaps, and that he would shrug it off with good humoured resignation; and she had been wrong. By the time she knew that wasn't going to happen it was too late to make a recovery and she had been faced with letting it go or risking making a bad situation worse. She had let it go, but she had not expected his anger to simmer in the way that it had. By the time he returned to the Pearl she had grasped that something more than her refusal to explain herself was involved, but it had taken some hours with Ariadne and the records before she decided that she might understand why. Now she could only guess at just how bad a mistake she had made.

Talking to him would make no difference, he was man of his time not hers and she could not be sure of her touch in such a situation. Not that words could ever be enough to undo it, when had they ever been? All she could do was pretend not to notice his mood and make sure that she didn't make the same error again. But with luck, or maybe without it, whatever was ahead would put an end to his brooding, and her actions would have to do what was needed to re-write the record.

In the meantime she needed a word with Ariadne, and to prepare herself for the voyage to be cold in more ways than one.

XXX

Hathaway had not been surprised to lose sight of the Pearl but once he had seen the Spanish back towards the trade routes he found himself undecided about his next course of action.

Logic told him he should head back towards Port Royale to report to the Admiral and Governor, but what did he have to report when it came down to it? That the Pearl had been pursued by the Spanish? Well that had always been expected, and would be no news to either of those two gentlemen. That the Spaniard had lost the Pearl? That was a cause for relief but probably little surprise given the Black Pearl's reputation. That he had lost sight of the Pearl? Of what use to them would that information be?

No, when he thought about it there was little to be gained by returning to report so little. Of course Navy rules would say that he should return for more orders, but he was not bound by navy rules, not in this matter, and both of the gentlemen in Port Royale knew this. If he did not return they would draw their own conclusions and then wait, with some impatience, until he had something of import to relate, speaking of the matter only between themselves.

What then should he do? He had no ancient map or magical compass, but he did have a good brain and a wealth of experience and common sense. The Black Pearl had been heading away from her home waters, away from the territory she preferred to haunt, and regardless of who was in command at this moment she would be doing that for a reason. Some inner voice prompted Hathaway that the reason might well be Jack Sparrow. After all the pirate had not been seen for some months, there had not been as much a spies' rumour of him. The Black Pearl had not been sighted often in that time either, but she had been sighted the once, taking on supplies and the information was that Gibbs was on board her but not Sparrow. If she was now headed for a long sail, and the nature of her provisions suggested that she was, her reasons might involve collecting Sparrow from wherever he had gone to ground, or at least looking for him.

Hathaway had poured over the maps for many hours, looking for some indication of where the Pearl might be seeking her missing captain, but there was little to give him a course. Even so he was sure that his instinct was right and that she had been in pursuit of something, rather than just wandering or avoiding summer storms, and that something was not plunder. While he could not be sure she hadn't changed direction after losing her pursuers he remained convinced that she would have resumed something close to her original course once free to do so. She had been sailing north, but the chart suggested that there were no settlements of any importance there.

Yet if the Pearl had been seeking him then he had been travelling somewhere and for some purpose, for Sparrow rarely ever did a thing on whim alone. But what that something was would have to wait until they caught up with him. For the moment he could only wait with what patience he could muster and the hope that events behind him did not drift into war. He summoned Groves and set him to identifying provisioning points for they were not equipped for a long unbroken sail in unfriendly waters. But  
The Black Pearl had been headed north so it was north that the Intrepid would go too.

XXX

They made the switch at noon the following day, and not a moment too soon for the first drifts of ice were sighted as they did so. In front of them the seas would soon be thickening and curdling with cold and the land to either side would be nothing more than broken mountain ranges of diamond hard, diamond bright, ice.

Jack stayed on board the Pearl while she passed them, then both ships turned towards land and shallower water before dropping anchor at the appointed point. There would be one last conference before they pushed on, one last checking of plans and fall backs. Just this one last chance to change their minds, for after this point they would consider themselves committed, unless one or other of them fell into danger. That was not as remote a possibility as any of them would like it to be, for these waters were some of the most hostile a sailor saw. Jack had wondered more than once if he would be so willing to do this if they did not have the advantage of Ariadne's ghostly accomplishments.

Such accomplishments as Jack would prefer were kept from his crew's superstitious eyes if it could be managed, and so he had chosen to make the crossing with only Gibbs for company. The need to hide, as far as possible, the lack of crew on the Chaser's deck meant that anchoring too close had been decided against, though both captains knew that even the most short sighted of the Black Pearl's crew must know the lack of men aboard by now. But concern about where they were going for the most part offset the men's' concern about the nature of who they were travelling with.  
Where that hadn't been the case, so far, the rapier of Anamaria's tongue had skilfully skewered the desire to speculate about the white ship before more than a few words were said. Pintel and Raggetti, superior in their greater knowledge of the lady captain just kept quiet and looked mockingly on those who asked. That being the case Jack knew the crew would not ask questions they did not want to know the answers to, just as long as the need for answers was not rammed too far down their throats

As they made their way across to the other ship Jack reflected that superstition was most certainly a double edged sword.

For himself he had other concerns, the crew would do as instructed, the Chaser would lead them a straight and safe passage, but there was nothing anyone could do about the chill. Though the progress was quick enough with the pair of them on the oars both men were aware of the fierce cold rising from below them. A few moments in these waters would be death of a man and the boat suddenly seemed very small and fragile against the great green expanse of ocean. Gibbs seeing his captain's thinned lips and lowered brow wondered if he might change his mind even now and head back towards warmer waters leaving Barbossa to whatever fate had planned for him. But Jack said nothing, just kept his eyes on his target and pulled harder as if anxious to be there and back again.

Elanor watched the long boat cross the space between them with some worry, wondering if it might not have been better to have forgone this meeting. Already the latitude was making itself felt, the wind was bitter now and Ariadne's scanner showed her captain a world where the scanty vegetation of summer was withering and the ice bound shore was beginning to reach out into the ocean again. She did not envy Jack his boat crossing at all and was not at all surprised that the cold had further damaged his temper, for his coat could have given little protection against the chill.

His greeting on climbing aboard was a cool nod of his head and the expressionless statement of her name, that duty done he had turned to Mr Gibbs, his companion in the boat, with an equally forbidding expression,  
"Go back to the Pearl, I'll signal when I need you to return. Should be no more than an hour or so for there is not much that we have to say."  
Jack's tone, no warmer than the waters looked to be, caused Gibbs to cast Elanor a woeful and uncertain look as he inclined his head respectfully towards her,  
"Captain Cavendish," he acknowledged before turning back to meet Jack's scowl, "Aye Capt'n," his voice held a slightly wary note but other than that he gave no indication that he was aware of the other man's mood.  
Jack exhaled heavily, his breath a cloud of smoke in the cold air  
"Well get on with you then," he said testily with a flap of a dismissing hand, "we've better things to be doin' than hanging around here." He shivered slightly, "Warmer ones too. Sooner we get there and do the thing the sooner we can be back in milder waters."  
"Aye sir," Gibbs agreed, though he wore no heavier jerkin than was usual and seemed almost unaware of the bite in the air, "I'll bring the boat when you hoist colours."  
"Aye,' Jack agreed somewhat abruptly, "now get on with you."

With nothing more than another nod in her direction Gibbs took up the oars and began the pull back to the Black Pearl. The two captains watched him go in silence.

When he was well beyond hearing distance Elanor leant on the rail and waited for Jack's eye to fall in her direction, it didn't take long.  
"Well?" he demanded, his voice no more welcoming than the look of the seas around them, "If you want to say something do so and spare me the gorgon look."  
Elanor picked up a braid and looked at it dispassionately,  
"I know, it's the wind, no matter how tightly I tie it is still breaks free and ends up in rats tails, or snakes if you would have it so."  
Jack rolled his eyes at such open provocation and expelled another cloud of smoky breath,  
"The point madam?" it sounded as if the words came from between gritted teeth.  
Elanor cast him an apologetic look,  
"Sorry. I just wondered if you had changed your mind?"  
"Why should I when there is so little choice. What Tia Dalma began must be finished or we all pay the price. Me and the Pearl included."  
"So we trust to the map. But I'd suggest not the compass."  
"Why not the compass pray?" There was anger in his face and voice again.  
She ignored it and smiled at him,  
"Just that it shows you where the thing you want most in the world is, that is what you told me isn't it?. Are you so sure that saving Barbossa and this Lucifer's Sword falls into that category? It means some nasty sailing and possibly even more unpleasant occurrences when we reach the goal. How can you be sure that it will continue to be what you want most in the world?"

For a moment Jack looked nonplussed,  
"Ah, I take your meanin' luv." He seemed uncertain for a moment then he shrugged, "Nothing I want more at the moment and as long as I keep meself from thinking about things I might want, if other things were different, then it seems to work."  
Jack cocked his head and narrowed his eyes in thought for a moment, then he gave her a very direct look, raising one finger in emphasis,  
"In fact it's not done the spinnin' trick since I first got near drowned by your good self."  
He seemed to reflect for a moment,  
"Not since I can back from the locker come to think of it," his voice had lost its angry edge and become thoughtful, "and that might mean something or nothing. Anyways we have the map too, do we not? And to this point the compass has not argued with that."  
He opened his coat and pulled the compass from his belt, holding it cupped in his hand as he frowned at it, then he smiled brightly as the needle flickered for a moment as if not sure where to go then settled down to an unwavering direction, the point not varying from the course predicted by the map by as much as a fraction of a degree.  
"See." He said triumphantly holding out to her.

Elanor leaned forward and peered at the steady needle then nodded.  
"It certainly seems to be showing the same course as the map."  
She looked up and met Jack's eyes blandly,  
"I wonder what it is about its' sudden good behaviour that makes me so suspicious?"


	31. Chapter 31

Title: Voyages of the Dawn Chaser 3 Lucifer's Sword  
Characters: Jack, OCs, Barbossa, BP crew, Gibbs , Calypso, Groves and sometimes the navy. No pairings at present.  
Rating: PG for Jacks turn of phrase and some politics  
Disclaimer: Characters belong to whosoever international law says they do, which for most of them certainly isn't me and I'm content  
When: Post AWE

Chapter 31

The top of the world. A place of snow palaces and ice cathedrals, of a horizon draped in shimmering hazy curtains of half frozen air. Almost another reality, breathtakingly beautiful and ruthlessly deadly, unreal in it's' purity and its glitter and glare.

A very unforgiving place.

Here they were beyond the reach of any kind of summer, and though the orange ball of the sun painted the ice rose and citrus it brought little warmth. All around was soft looking but everyone on the Black Pearl knew that there was no harder world than this one, no place more punishing of the careless or unwary,or just unlucky, unless it was it's southern sibling.

They picked their way carefully, relying on the ship before them to find a safe passage through the drifting floes; her white wood seeming a part of this place, her outline blurring against the ice as they inched past it.

The map had taken them a strange path well away from the trade routes, such as they were up here, and away, too, from the race routes that Elanor had sailed. Away from anything that might be called land. Yet the floating pillars of ice and sheets of snow still provided an illusion of the world they knew, as if calling them to drop anchor and dally a while, to absorb the beauty and majesty surrounding them. But every man aboard the Pearl knew that such dalliance would spell only death and so they kept their eyes on the line taken by the white ship, praying that the lady captain's companion ghost kept them safe.

Praying, too, that she kept her presence to her own ship. In such a place it was not so hard for them to believe that she might decide to come and visit them, despite what their captain had told them.

Jack, maybe realising their fearful state of mind, stayed on deck much of the time, snatching little sleep, or so it seemed to Gibbs. Even when he did it was most often on deck, swaddled in canvas and something that looked to be a shorn sheep's fleece. The long hours of staring at the path of the white ship, hands almost frozen to the Pearl's wheel had done little for his temper though, and he had snarled more often then he smiled these last few days. Most of the men steered a careful course around him, only Anamaria having the balls to check his sharp tongue when he was most tired or cantankerous.

But she was no ray of sunshine either, and though she still shared the odd glass of rum with him, and probably Jack too, Gibbs knew that she would need little provocation to chew a man's head off. He just hoped that it wouldn't be his. Not that he could fault her sailing skills and he was coming to recognise that Jack might well have been right that far away day when he had said it would be worse luck not to have her than to take her,

Certainly when the blizzard hit.

Those first few days after the white ship took the lead the weather had continued fine, or at least as fine as it could be when ice was forever on the horizon. Frost had laid heavy on the lines and stiffened the canvas true enough, and the grey sheen of the sky blanked out the pale shadow of the sun,` but it had spat neither snow nor hail down upon them. When the weather's change of mood came it was a quick as a whore's frown on seeing a slack purse, the grey of the sky deepening from pearl to slate almost in the blink of an eye. The first snow was light, almost playful, settling on the canvas and the decks like down from a burst pillow, but it soon began falling in earnest, the rising wind whipping it around so fiercely that the air thickened with it until a man could not see the hand before his face.

Jack had been snatching one of his infrequent naps when the snow fall started, and Gibbs had not thought to wake him, not while his temper was so uncertain. But as the lines strained in the gathering blanket of down like ice the Dawn Chaser came about, broadsiding and hoisting new flags, a message that sent Gibbs tearing down the stair to the lower deck without heed for the coating ice.  
"Jack wake up, Captain Cavendish has need to speak with you, and I'm guessing it is not something that can be delayed. She's droppin' anchor and she'd not do that in this place without a pressin' reason."

The Pearl's captain was rolled up in a blanket swathed ball in Gibbs own hammock, his hair wrapped tightly about his neck and then tucked into his shirt, and his hat jammed down across his forehead. The blanket had come from the white ship, she had provided several, for which every man on the ship was grateful, and Jack had his face tucked down into this one like a cat burying its nose into its fur. A sheet of canvas covered the blanket and neither nose nor finger was offered to the bite of the dead cold air. Even so what could be seen of his skin was paler than Gibbs had ever seen it; not even accommodation in a garrison cell had bleached his tan as this place of silver and white had done. A rare reminder that Jack was not bred in the hotter lands, even though he called the Caribbean his own, and it stirred a sudden curiosity in Gibbs to know where Teague had hailed from before his arrival as pirate in the waters that became his hunting ground.

But for the moment that particular wondering would have to stay just that for more urgent matters demanded attention. Above him he could hear Anamaria bawling the orders to furl sail and drop anchor, and he had no desire to remain still for very long, not the way the ice had been gathering around them this last hour or so. Made him think of a nutcracker and a nut it did and that was not a pretty thought. Sooner Jack saw to whatever it were the lady captain wanted him for the sooner they could be on the move however had showed no sign of waking, he just buried his nose further into the coverings without as much a twitch of his whiskers.

With a sigh of sympathy Gibbs leaned forward and shook him,  
"Wakey, wakey Capt'n, you be needed on deck."  
When that brought no response he leaned forwards and hollered into where he judged Jack's ear to be,  
"Pearl needs you Jack, so stir yerself."  
That got through the haze of sleep and Jack muttered a curse and shook his head as he pushed the coverings away from his shoulders, shivering and cursing again at the sudden unbuffered contact with the icy air.  
"Wsss wron," he muttered as he rubbed his eyes, still reddened by long hours spent awake and watchful.  
Gibbs smiled slightly,  
"I'd not be knowin' that or I'd not need to wake ye. But the lady has come about and dropped anchor, she signals that she needs to speak, and it not be me she'll be wantin' words with."

Jack shook his head trying to dispel the headache that had dogged him these last few days and that his snatched nap had not shifted.  
"Aye, true enough," he growled then smiled slightly as Gibbs produced his flask from his pocket and handed it across with an almost fatherly look and welcome words,  
"Looks like ye be needin' this, tis mighty cold now and you've not slept much these past few days."  
He took a swallow, grimacing slightly as the rough spirit slid across a throat made sore by long hours in the cold air, then shook his head again before taking another swig and handing the flask back. Sighing noisily he threw the coverings off and rolled over and onto his feet. He winced as he straightened, the cold had found the remaining mark of every insult his body had ever been offered, and there had been a good few of those. He rubbed at his wrist, the ache seeming even worse than when he had laid down, and the long healed brand had burned these last few days as if it were new again. Somewhere at the back of his mind Jack wondered if this was just the cold or a sign of something else, then he quickly pushed the thought away.

He stretched slowly, yawning then shaking himself like a wet dog, still trying to throw off the feeling that his head was full of snow,  
"Any warnin' she were going to come about?"  
Gibbs pursed his lips, took a swig from his flask almost without being aware of it and then gave a short shake of his head,  
"None I saw. Anamaria might have noticed something but if she did she's not said. She were goin' forward as before, and we was following but keeping distance as you told us, then suddenly she's broadsiding and stoppin'."  
"Damn the woman, what is she about now?"Jack muttered to himself. "still she's no fool so there is a reason and it don't bode well. Best find out what it is sooner rather than later."  
He met Gibbs eyes with something that looked close to resignation,  
"What's the weather doin', nothin good I expect."  
Gibbs sighed and held out the flask again,  
"Snows been getting worse these last two hours, nigh on blizzard now, can barely see the lady's ship. Course her being white don't help."  
His captain took a gulp of rum, winced and wiped the liquid fire from his lips as if he feared it would freeze there.  
"Aye. Well I'd best find out what it is she wants. Can we lower a boat?"  
Gibbs cast him a horrified look,  
"Jack! You can't plan to row across. Not in this weather."  
Jack sighed wearily,  
"Not what I'd chose to be doin' but can't see any way out of it. Signals are slow, unless it's just a complaint against the weather. Which I doubt it is. Could take till Middlemass to find out what she wants otherwise."  
"Weell," Gibbs wanted to object but couldn't, certainly not when Jack got that set look on his face, "that be true enough I suppose, the lady captain she not be one to waste words in such a place I'd be thinking."  
Jack scowled and grunted,  
"Aye she's sparing enough with the words when it suits her."  
With that he flapped Gibbs out of his way and started towards the deck.

The signal was brief enough,  
"Parley." He muttered looking at the flags just visible in snatches between the clouds of snow, "easy enough for her to say." He turned to Anamaria, "signal back that we've seen her flags." He looked at the darkening sky, shadows thickening the veil swathing the world, "best use the lanterns."  
He gritted his teeth and squared his shoulders, "then gets the long boat ropes and tackle unfrozen if you can."  
Anamaria cast him a disbelieving look but taking in the stiff set of his jaw she turned away to do as he instructed only muttering something about mad men as she went. Jack knew exactly what she meant.

But in the end it was a mad woman rather than a mad man who made the journey. They had barely begun the process of preparing the ropes of the long boat when a knock against the Pearl's sea ladder sent Jack hurrying to the side. Elanor appeared on the deck as if she had just wished herself there. To his great surprise he discovered instead of being grateful for this he was more than a little outraged that she had made the journey in such weather, 'not concern for her welfare' he told himself, 'for she could more than take care of herself,' but because it was just another example of her lack of trust in him and his ability.

His ruffled feather settled slightly though as she took his arm and drew him away from his crew saying softly,  
"It occurred to me that it would take you some time to get a boat usable in this weather, and I thought the sooner we spoke the better it would be."  
"Your boat's not frozen then?" He muttered, still a little uncertain whether to take offence or not.  
"No, different materials, they don't freeze as quickly. In fact they don't freeze at all under normal circumstances, even in the Arctic. I do though, so is there somewhere warmer where we can talk in private."  
Jack cast her a softer look, some of the affronted stiffness leaving his posture  
"Aye, I'd rather not use the cabin though, Barbossa remains as he was but I'd not put it past the old devil to be listening anyway, however many ghosts he's dancin' with. Fires still in below so let's wander to the galley, can send the cook away it'll not hurt if the rations are late this evening."  
She started to follow him, tucking her arm through his as they went. Jack found himself unwilling to pull away, certainly not when she inclinded her head towards him and spoke softly,  
"Up to you, just as long as it's somewhere we can't be seen or heard."  
He half turned and gave her a long hard look as something in his stomach sank,  
"Expected nothing else, you'd not have made the crossing unless it was important," was all he said as he let the way below.

On the deck the crew watched the woman in awe, more than one man experiencing an irresistible urge to cross himself. As the captain drew her alongside him and then steered her down below they avoided one another's eyes, and more than one of them wondered if they had done well in signing on for this voyage. Many more than that found themselves remembering stories of the death of Jack Sparrow, tales they had discounted easily enough when the flesh and blood was there before them, but that seemed less far fetched now.

Gibbs, catching thecrew's mood exchanged a look with Anamaria and hoped that the angelic looking Captain Cavendish was not planning on staying long.

XXX

In Port Royal the summer storms were upon them. The air simmered like a stew and the heat of mid day was so oppressive that any movement was a effort, but this season's weather was made all the more intolerable by the political storms being unleashed around them. As with the weather it was a time when a cool head and long experience were the greatest assets. The two men sitting the drawing room of Government house were blessed with both but even so they both knew it would take their combined qualities to steer them through with safety. Both knew too that whatever their skills safe passage was not guareenteed and that too much still lay in the lap of the gods.

"I had another visit from Fothergill today."  
Governor Thynne spoke softly, even though the port had been upon the table, and the servants gone, for some minutes.  
Admiral Norrington paused in the act of skinning a peach, supplied by the Governor's own estate, and cast a half frown towards his host,  
"Fothergill?"  
Thynne watched the candlelight through the ruby contents of his glass, his face in shadow.  
"A company man, and a most persistent one. A ghastly creature in a brown coat and woollen stockings, and wearing one of the worst wigs it has ever been my misfortune to stare upon. B'gad Norrington, it took some effort on my part to keep my mind on his words for I was sure the wretched thing would slide from his head and into his teacup at any moment."  
He took a sip, then went on speaking as softly as before,  
"Lawyer of some sort, or so he claimed, odd man and unlike any man of law I've ever met before," He sighed and put the glass down, "but then I could hardly demand to see his articles. Rather I could but it would not have been politic."

Norrington turned his eyes back to his fruit and resumed his preparation of it,  
"No, I agree that it's best to give them as little dry powder as possible. The Company employee some strange persons, those I've met I'd most certainly not want serving under my command."  
"Like that wretch Mercer." Thynne said with a sigh as he reached for the cheese.  
Norrington nodded,  
"Yes indeed, Beckett too, but there are plenty others less obviously villainous but no less undesirable." He shrugged as he laid down the fruit knife, "The King lets the company be though, for the moment at least, knowing that it will go where he would have an influence but when he cannot afford the troops." He shrugged, "The nature of the beast is such that those of little honour or breeding are drawn to it, and therefore the chance of making more gold than they would otherwise see. There are bound to be some men of legal letters amongst such a motley crew, this Fothergill may be one such. What did he want?"  
Thynee leant back and drew a deep breathe,  
"Your nephew's diary and letters Admiral," was the bald reply.

Norrington stared at the other man for a moment in frowning silence,  
"Why should they want those?" he said eventually, "Or even think to gain them from you? They form part of James estate and so were his to leave where he would."  
The Governor gave a small cold smile,  
"So one might think, but Mr Fothergill put it to me that, as your nephew was engaged as an officer of the company at the time of the events, his diary and letters, and the material contained within them, is likely to relate to company business in the main, and therefore may be considered company property."  
"The man is a fool!"  
That caused Thynee to smile slightly and take up his glass and sip daintily,  
"No, but he thought me to be. A foppish friend of the king with more money than sense, and little knowledge of law or military matters, was obviously what he thought me to be," The smile widened, "and I confess that on realising his opinion I may have played to the gallery a little. Helped, I think, by a new primrose silk coat that I knew to be a mistake as soon as the dressing room door closed behind me this morning. Still it has paid for itself most handsomely if it has assisted me in hoodwinking that distasteful creature."

Norrington nodded but was silent for a moment,  
"But why would they think you held James estate?" he asked eventually.  
The 'foppish friend of the king' shot him a very shrewd look and flicked a lace draped hand,  
"They do not and Fothergill's mission was, apparently, to gain my support in prevailing upon you to hand them to the company if they are in your possession."  
"I see, but why do they want them? It cannot be to hide Beckett's treason for they will know that all Saint James is aware of that by now. Swann managed that much vengeance at least."  
"Indeed," Thynne agreed, "and I pointed out as much to him, not obviously I hope, merely commenting in the most vacuous way I could, and with some regret, that Beckett's death at Sparrow's hands had robbed us all of the spectacle and entertainment of his execution."  
He frowned,  
"The man seemed a little taken aback, as if he had not previously known of Swann's letters. He seemed rather annoyed too, but then he could hardly claim that Weatherby was in the company's employ. However he continued to insist that the company should take possessions of your nephew's papers and that I should exert myself to persuade you. What they hope to gain from them I cannot say, not being privy to the contents."

Norrington was silent for a moment sipping his port.  
"I have read much of them, and though I can see why they would not wish the King to see them, I cannot, at the moment, know what they think to gain from them other than that."  
Thynne leaned forward,  
"Well there is something, so may I ask that you devote more study to them."  
"Yes indeed! It seems that Hathaway was correct, for he had suggested that the Company might well make such overtures just before he sailed."  
"He is not returned?"  
"No, and there is no news from him."  
Norrington gave Thynne a expressionless look,  
"A man of unusual qualities, Hathaway, and some strange acquaintances too."

The Govenor shot him a sharp glance but his voice was mild enough,  
"Indeed. These acquaintances being relevant to our current situation may I conjecture?"  
"Possibly," Norrington was unwilling to say more, "what have you told Fothergill?"  
"Very little other than that I fear the paucity of my influence with the navy means that I can do little, but that I will speak with you on the matter."  
"Good, stall him by whatever means you can and I will address the situation."  
Both men then turned their attention back to the port and the effects of the current weather on Spanish activity and on trade.

Several hours later Norrington left his quarters wearing a pain dark coat and breeches and minus his usual wig and headed down to the town and the address that Hathaway had left for him. In one pocket he carried a pistol and in the other a sample of James letters.

XXX

"She can see nothing?"  
Jack's tone was troubled and Elanor could not blame him for it.  
"No, not since this blizzard began. Well no more than a few thousand yards."  
"Would you expect that?"  
"No, the weater should not present Ariadne with any problems on that count."  
That caused him to bite at his lip and frown,  
"Hmmm, something else then, something….strange."

Elanor leant back against a table, her face blushed by the glow from the only fire for miles. 'One that could probably not burn for much longer either,' she had reflected, 'given that there was no longer any land to collect wood and flotsam was scarce up here, at least in this world.' She cast Jack a wry look,  
"Depends on your definition of strange I suppose, and I'd imagine yours is somewhat more extreme than most people's."  
She saw him draw breath to reply and smiled,  
"Certainly not usual. In fact I'll admit that it's unprecendented," she said before he could get around to framing whatever words of complaint he was thinking of. "Which is why I am here, in part."  
"Oh?"  
Jack was still on his dignity she noticed, and was sorry for it, wondering how she might undo the damage she had done to their relationship. She inclinded her head towards his belt,  
"Have you looked at that compass of yours recently?"

A thoughtful look crept into his face,  
"Not since the snow began. Were showing the course as true at that point though. "  
"Look again will you please."  
He nodded and pulled the compass free of his belt readily enough, though his mouth quirked with some unexpressed concern. He flicked the case lid with a thumb and squinted down at it, his expression changing to irritation as he caught sight of the dial. Elanor raised her brows in query and he held it out to her with a sigh. The needle was spinning. He shook it, and glared at it, but still the needle spun. He snapped it shut with a sigh and a bitter look,  
"But I know what I want," he pointed a warning finger at her and glared, daring her to say he didn't, "and I'll not have you say different. So what is that's amiss with the bloody thing!"  
Elanor rubbed her eyes, somehow she was not in the least surprised by the antics of the compass,  
"I believe you Jack, assuming what you know you want is what you actually do want."  
His glare intensified  
"Don't start that again. I know what I want I tell you, I want this done and over, and that means finding this blessed sword thing. So why does it think I do not."  
"I doubt that it does."  
"Then why the spinning?"  
"Perhaps because it knows what you want but doesn't know where to find it any more."  
"What! And why would that be?"  
She smiled at him ruefully,  
"Perhaps for the same reason that Ariadne is suddenly blind."  
Jack leaned against the table and folded his arms across his chest, his face hard and his dark eyes intent in the glow of the fire, his gaze somewhere other than this galley.  
"That began with the snow you say?"  
"Yes. Well with the blizzard actually."  
"So something changed at that point."  
"Seems likely."  
His eyes narrowed in thought,  
"But what? Nothing around us to change anything."

Elanor watched him for a moment, almost seeing the rapid pace of his thoughts. Jack was very far from being a fool and she knew he would get there quickly, after all he had more practice than most with the weird and wonderful. His eyes widened after a moment and he turned his head towards her, brows raised and his eyes narrowed almost to black slits,  
"The sword you think."  
She nodded,  
"Yes, I think so. We are getting close, that or for some reason it wants us to come to it." She shook her head, "And I can't quite believe I just said that. But I think we've just crossed a line of some sort and now we are feeling it's' influence, or that of something that hides or protects it."  
Jack pursed his lips and thought for a moment, his eyes still looking somewhere she couldn't see, then he turned towards her,  
"How would that work then? Can your ghost tell us that?"  
Elanor shrugged,  
"I have discussed it with her, and she thinks that it is possible that we have strayed across some reality marker. Probably something similar to the one that guards the locker."  
Jack rolled his eyes then frowned at her,  
"I hate it when you depart from the Kings English and you know it, Speak plain Captain, can't be any need for such obfuscatorary language!"  
"Sorry, I forgot. I suppose the closest I can come to is that we have sailed into another ….room of the world, one whose door is usually shut and bolted. Why we have unbolted it, or how we have done it, well….. your guess is as good as mine, and given your past possibly a lot better."

Jack glowered at her for a moment then turned away to stare into the shadows again, his expression becoming one of complete mental absorption.  
"A place beyond the edges of the map again," he said eventually, "here but not….here. Like a fog, whats' in it is always there but while in it you can't see… whats there."  
"Yes, I suppose so. Not being able to see something doesn't mean its not there. Just like what you think you see is not necessrily what's actually there."  
That got her a sideways look,  
"By my reckoning what I see is usually what's there, more's the pity. You know differently do you?"  
She smiled and perched her hips on the edge of the table,  
"Not know as such, but can see the possibilities. Where I come from there are those who would tell you that this table," she patted it with one hand, "doesn't exist as a table at all, that it is just a set of particles that are vibrating at a different rate to the others around it. That's why it seems solid while the air or water does not. They would say that even you and I, at least our bodies, are just the same and that if we could learn how to adjust the rate at which we vibrate then we could walk through this table, or even the wall."  
Jack cast her a thoughtful look,  
"Well I've seen sailors, and a monkey too, that were as men in the sun but revealed as corpses in the moonlight, so I'd not necessarily be arguing with that. I'm content just as long as me vibratory bits stay as they are."

He drew a deep breath,  
"But what now? No compass, no ghost. Just the map."  
"Yes," she agreed, "just the map."  
"And you think it is sword itself that's doin' this?"  
"Don't you?"  
He looked away and down, rubbing the toe of his boot against the planking as if seeing to comfort his ship,  
"Aye, seems likely," he said eventually.  
"So do we go on? Do you want to take the Pearl forward or join me aboard my ship and leave your crew safely here? This is our quest Jack, not theirs, they just signed on for a voyage and we don't know what waits up ahead."

Jack was silent for a long moment, his memory replaying, in vicious detail, the sight of the bodies scattered about the Pearl after the Kracken attacked. Some part of him never wanted to see such a sight again, for a man to die in pursuit of the plunder he sought a share in was one thing but that….and this… well maybe they were not one and the same. Then again he had no desire to leave the Pearl here to the ravages of the weather, and whatever this strange place they were in might hold, without her captain to protect her.

Finally he turned and looked Elanor full in the face,  
"Do you think the Pearl could return to normal water again?"  
She seemed taken aback by the question for a moment, and then a weary look passed across her face,  
"No, I suspect that she couldn't. Not now."  
"In which case they are safer with me aboard and yourself and your ghost at our side, would you not say?"  
"Yes, or rather probably."  
He smiled at her admission,  
"Then we go on together. Both ships. It cannot be long now I'm thinking."  
Elanor nodded and straightened,  
"Very well, and I agree it probably won't be long, so we had better make preperations."

She turned and started for the steps, Jack watched her go but did not move. As she put her foot upon the first stair she stopped and spoke without looking at him,  
"Am I forgiven Jack?"  
His face and voice were expressionless as he replied, not pretending to misunderstand,  
"Do you admit there is something to be forgiven?"  
She turned and looked at him, foot still on the step, her face serious, her eyes meeting his without evasion,  
"Yes, I admit that there is something to be forgiven. But believe me when I promise you that my refusal to speak was not meant as any insult to you, as either man or captain. Call it a reflection of my origins perhaps, and I can't put that aside so easily, any more than you can ignore yours. We are both the product of our past and we can't pretend otherwise, and maybe we shouldn't have to try. But if it hurt or offended you then I am sorry for it and I admit your right to be angry."

Jack cursed silently, why was it that she had to be so bloody… honourable and…..honest….. and… and …. un female creature like. No woman who looked like she did should be so reasonable, it turned the world topsy turvey! But as he looked at her he found that he believed her and was somehow warmer inside for it. With a swagger he crossed to her and put his arm around her shoulder, steering her up the steps, with a smirk,  
"Apology accepted luv, for the moment that is. We'll have some more discussion on the matter when this is business is done. But for the moment…"  
Her face became even more sombre,  
"The sword."  
His smirk vanished and for a second or two his fingers tighened on her shoulder in understanding and support, the compass suddenly heavy against his thigh,  
"Aye, the sword."


	32. Chapter 32

Disclaimer: Characters belong to whosoever international law says they do, which for most of them certainly isn't me and I'm content  
When: Post AWE

In which Calypso starts to wonder, Jack facing having no where to run to and Elanor has a worrying insight.

Chapter 32 Worlds within Worlds

They had sailed through the blizzard for another day, though sailing was not really the word to describe the nature of their progress. Without Ariadne's long seeing eyes to keep them safe they were forced to move at a snails pace and with minimum canvas. On the Black Pearl lookouts armed with staves felt for ice around them as they inched their way forward through the heavy curtain of snow. The cold grew deeper with each passing hour and the ice heavier, now there had to be squads dedicated to keeping the lines and yards free of it and the extra work was stretching the crew to the limits. Gibbs staring around at the deceptively soft looking clouds of snow and ice wondered how much longer they would be able to hold out, and, if they did not, how the Dutchman would find them in so hellish and God abandoned a spot.

Only the regular tolling of the watch bell gave any sense of time to those on deck, for it could be either night or day for all that they could see. The horizon, like the sky, had long been lost to view, and the light had the same hazy and unreal quality regardless of time. To the side of them the Dawn Chaser was just a half glimpsed shadow that was sometimes there and sometimes not; their only constant companion was the snow, the wind and the cold.

Jack, standing at the stern with the glass close to one eye, it would freeze the skin if it touched him, was looking for a sign of movement on the other ship and saw none. He hoped that all was well for he had wondered how Elanor was managing, and whether he should offer her men to help crew the white ship, several times since she had left the Pearl. But she had showed no sign of unusual concern and her ghost had always seemed crew enough for her, he hoped that remained the case. The rational part of him knew that he could not risk sending any of his superstitious men over to that strange vessel of hers anyways, not without courting trouble. If she needed help she would ask for it and if she did then it would have to be himself or Gibbs who went. While he'd do it if he had to the idea of leaving the Pearl in these conditions did not sit easily with him.

He just wished he could see some sign of life over there, though he'd not blame her for battening hatches and staying below if she had the option of it.

The two ships had drawn a safe distance apart, and both showed lanterns at regular intervals, their pale flame and shadow the only way for their captains to remain sure that the other was still there. As he peered through the curtain of falling snow he speculated on whether she was feeling as cold as he was, somehow he rather doubted it for her world seemed to have such things better ordered than his.

The blinding of her ghost had been a blow, no denying that. As for the compass… well he was beginning to wonder if the working of the bloody thing was half as simple as Tia Dalma had once led him to believe. He'd not be surprised if there were all sorts of conditions and prohibitions attached to it and its' actions that she had seen fit to remain mum about at the time, not surprised at all any more. Not knowing her for what she truly was, as he now, most unfortunately, did. He frowned as his thoughts returned to the present and their current situation, the map might give them a course, well obviously it did for t'was what maps did after all, but it would not keep them safe while they sailed it, and sailing safe was beginning to take up more of his attentionary capacity than he was comfortable with. He was no longer sure they even had anywhere to run to, and there had always been that, even of the place he was running to had risks of it's own. Now it seemed he didn't even have the choice of risk. Not a comfortable situation at all.

He looked down the decks, keeping the frown from his face with an effort,  
The crew were doing all a captain could ask of them but men could not continue at this rate for long, between keeping the lines and canvas ice free and watching for the encroaching floes there was no time to rest, no peace. No, they couldn't hope to continue this way for much longer, soon the exhaustion would be too much for even their fear to overcome. That point would have already been passed had Elanor not handed over some strange potion of her own to be added to their water.

"Use it sparingly Jack," she'd said as she put it into his hand just before she descended back to her boat, "too much will do more harm than good. Two drops per man and no more than once in 24 hours. This should last your whole crew more than a week."  
He'd stared at the small vial as he twisted it this way and that trying to make out what it might be. The bottle was dark but the contents seemed to be without colour.  
"What is it? Or do I not want to know?"  
Elanor gave a small snort of laughter at that,  
"When have you not wanted to know? Certainly if you think there might be a profit in it."  
He'd shot her a hopeful look,  
"Is there?"  
"A profit? Oh yes, as in helping us to stay alive. Which, given the present circumstances, puts its value as somewhat above that of a good woman, in my eyes at least. Assuming you know what that is."

At that he'd risked a small grin, though the mood of the pair of them was sober.  
"Good book says that is above rubies, though as I recall it's a little unforthcoming on just how many rubies. Nor does it make any comparisons against other valuable items or similar treasures."  
"Trust you to notice that."  
Her reply had been good humoured enough and he noted that she had made no remarks about him knowing the 'good book' in question. He'd risked a wink at her,  
"Not that I've ever been able to afford a good woman you understand." He grinned, "Plenty of very good bad women mind you, but I doubt that's what said book had in mind."  
That caused her to grin in response,  
"So do I. Given who wrote it I expect they had a very definite idea of what a 'good' woman was, and I expect that I would have as little in common with their description as your ladies in Tortuga."  
Her grin faded, and she inclined her head in the direction of the bottle she had handed to him,  
"I mean what I said about that Jack, use it sparingly. I've brought few thermal sheets with me too, part of my 'liquid assets' but I'm not likely to be using them anywhere else and they may keep your men from freezing in their sleep. Don't let them use them on deck though; being soaked in freezing sea water isn't good for the heat retaining properties."  
With that she had climbed over the rail and down the sea ladder only pausing to hand him up a number of small parcels before she took up her oars and began the row back to her ship.

Jack hollered for Anamaria and then stood and watched Elanor's boat disappear into the swirling snow, considering as he did so the useful, though sometimes vexatious, nature of good women. As that other good woman of his acquaintance came up beside him he pressed the packets into her hand, but his eyes remained on the curtain of snow and half him mind was still out in the boat making the crossing.  
"These are for the hammocks, for sleepin' in," he muttered his eyes still fixed on the course her boat must take even though he could no longer see her, "and mind that the men know that that is where they stay. Will keep the cold out, or so the lady says, provided they are kept dry."  
"Need somethin' to do it," Anamaria replied turning one of the slim packets in her hands, "not lost a man to the cold yet but can only be a matter of time if this keeps up."  
"Aye, well these should help."  
He turned away from his perusal of the blizzard and cast a warning look at Anamaria,  
"And make sure there are no questions about where they came from. You have your captain's permission to chew off the balls of any man who asks inconvenient questions. Not that you need it…. The permission I mean…. I expect."  
Anamaria gave him a small smile but said nothing, a clear indication of how serious she considered the current situation to be. Jack noted that fact and frowned, thinking that it was not often he'd seen Anamaria hold her tongue when she had something acid to say Jack met her eyes for a moment then turned back towards the outline of the Dawn Chaser just visible occasionally in the thinner parts of the haze of flying ice.  
"She'll make it back fine Capt'n." Anamaria's voice was calm, "never seen one better able to take care of herself." She sniffed and turned away, "Good job one of you is."  
That was her parting shot and as he turned to her with a glare ready she strode out of both staring length and earshot before he could frame a suitable reply.

But in the hours that followed Jack began to admit to himself the doubts, to wonder if they would come through. Elanor had shown a light to tell him she had made it back but since then there had been no communication. They had upped anchor and resumed their crawl, but crawl it had been, with the ice always snapping at them and the snow laying heavy on the yards unless he sent a stream of men aloft to risk their already weary necks in clearing it.

Just when it was reaching the point when even that was not enough, when even the usually ebullient Jack Sparrow was having doubts about their chances of making it through, the curtain of snow thinned a little and the quality of the light changed, as if somewhere the sun had come out.

It was soon clear it was not the sun breaking through above them, for this light was all around, as much rising from the ice as it was streaming from the skies. The wind dropped too, the sudden silence taking them all by surprise and halting every man in his tracks for the moment. The blizzard shifted its nature again, sheathing the sharper of its claws, the snow flakes drifting down in feather like clouds once more rather than the heavy swaddling blankets of the hours before and not even these fell straight for few flakes seemed to fall upon the Black Pearls deck.

Jack climbed the rigging not trusting anyone else to give a true account of what was happening. From his perch on the main mast he could see that they were enclose in a bubble of some form and that the space between and around the two ships was a quiet place apart, though the air beyond that place was still thick with snow. As he raised his glass again Jack realised that the two ships were cocooned in a hole in the weather, a bubble of calm amongst the turmoil.  
"What now?" he muttered to himself and began a rapid descent to the deck.

XXX

Calypso, wearing human form again for all that she could not be seen, watched Jack climb the masts with a half smile, remembering his agility and wiry strength with some pleasure. Far away in the warmth of Jack's beloved Caribbean the seas continued with her wishes to keep the various kings navies busy, and some part of her was aware of this and making sure the conditions continued, but most of her was condensed here in this frozen place on the edge of waters that were none of hers to watch over her captain.  
'Dyin' not done ya any continuin' damage it seems.' She thought as she leaned back against the snowglare,'tis all for the good and I'd nat wish you any harm for the sake of the past.'

She a gave a quick sideways look towards her companion as Jack scanned the crystal world around him with a glass then turned she her attention back aloft wondering what the man up there made of it all and if he had any inkling of the purpose he was being called to serve. Calypso doubted it, for he was still mostly mortal after all and even a goddess such as herself could only see the outer reaches of this business, and if the truth be told she could only see that dimly. Her power was restricted to this time and place and to the waters of the oceans and the seas, and, though she had lived as long as man had known those oceans and seas, and would continue to do so while the waters existed, she was nearly as limited as a mortal when the matters extended beyond that. Which this one did, or so it appeared. This made her wonder what realm it was that the two ships were being drawn towards, for, if she could not see it, then it must be a strange place indeed.

Beside her the Lady was a silent as ever, and though her tilted hat still shadowed her face Calypso was sure that her eyes were also fixed on Jack. It suddenly occurred to her to wonder if the Lady even had any power or influence within this world, and if she did not then what did that mean for their respective captain's chances of either success or survival? With a worried look she leant towards that hat,  
"What say that fan of yorn Lady? Are things as we would wish them and be there anythin' we can do to aid them if matters are set on skewin'?"  
For a moment there was no indication that she had been heard but she knew better than to try and force the issue with her, the Lady acted as she would and answered as she would and only when she chose to, and so Calypso contained her impatience with ill grace and waited.

A movement was the answer, the pale, lace draped arm of the Lady raising the fan and spreading it before them. On the glistening silk the medallions glowed, the usual number as far as Calypso could judge, but now the colour of them was paled. Not as they had been watered in the past when danger and uncertainty threatened but overlaid by a haze of light that seemed to come from within the images themselves. For some reason she could not judge Calypso thought that these images were in some way further away than those the fan usually carried and the idea disturbed her. Anything that could so affect the Lady's fan was not something she wished to encounter, goddess or not, and so she asked,  
"Can ya help them here Lady? Or are they beyond even your reach?"

There was silence again and then the Lady closed her fan gently and tilted her head as if listening to something Calypso could not hear; then the cold white ice around them suddenly sprang to brilliant coloured life, glowing like the contents of an opened treasure chest as she smiled.

XXX

Norrington was worried.

Hathaway had sent a message with a merchant ship coming back from the east coat colonies that he was sailing north in pursuit of Sparrow. The report had been placed aboard the merchant at least two weeks before, and nothing else had been heard. Hathaway gave no reason for the assumption that Sparrow was aboard but, as Norrington admitted to himself, nor was there any other explanation for the Black Pearl's actions. The report also spoke of an encounter with a Spanish warship in a place they would not expect it to be, suggesting that their enemies had not abandoned the idea that Sparrow held the heart of Davy Jones and could be 'persuaded' to give it up. An idea that sent a shiver through the Admiral who knew only too well what that would mean for everyone. It appeared the Spaniard had not caught the Black Pearl this time and that she had been lost to sight. But Hathaway remained convinced that she was heading north and with some purpose and was therefore in pursuit.

Norrington sighed and wiped his forehead, the day was almost unbearably hot and even within the cooler shadows of the fort his woollen coat and wig were something of a trial. The clouds were massing on the horizon again, the first warning of yet another storm, and already the hot and dusty air felt uneasy as if frightened of the coming winds.

The Admiral pushed himself to his feet and crossed to the window, wondering if this was how it had felt that evening before the Black Pearl had first launched her attack against the town. Then it was under Barbossa's command, and if James private journal was to be believed a Barbossa who was then not fully alive, and eventually dead at Sparrow's hand. Though, according to both James and Groves, that had not stopped a man using that name, and looking very like the original, from sailing in the pirate fleet against Beckett.

Not for the first time the Admirals rational mind protested at the thought, and yet he had to admit that James had not been an imaginative man and he had seemed convinced, though not willing to report as much to his Navy masters'. A reticence his uncle was most grateful for. Many of the events surrounding Beckett's pursuit of dominance of the seas strained the assumptions they had all thought normal, now none of them knew what normal was any longer. Only Sparrow had seemed unfazed by the unreal nature of events, which made Norrington wonder about Sparrow's own status on the indicators of normality. The man clever that was true enough, adaptable and fast footed too, but his equanimity in the face of such strangeness hinted at something more than that. Not for the first time Norrington hoped he got to meet the pirate at some point, preferably while both were on the same side.

As he stared towards the dark smudged horizon he considered Hathaway's words again and had to admit the truth of them. 'Given the change in the Black Pearl's behaviour in this last month,' the kings' man had written 'the chance that she is about Sparrow's business must be given credence. It is my opinion that that somehow the elusive Captain Jack Sparrow has resumed his command and has some purpose, other than nomadic wandering, for his course. Sparrow does little without reason and it would be something serious indeed that takes him north at this point in time, but I believe he has indeed sailed north. While I cannot hope to catch him I will pursue him, I may be able to keep the enemy from his throat if they follow him too. It is possible that if I track his likely course I will discover some indication of what he is about.'

Norrington sighed and reached for his glass, Hathaway might well be right and there was little he could do in these waters if Sparrow was elsewhere. The defence of the Caribbean trade routes were his own business but Hathaway had an entirely different set of orders, this seemed to give him the best chance of fulfilling them.

He turned allowing his eyes to wander over the stack of letters and other documents collected by the governor, and copied for him by navy clerks and that littered the desk, For all their sakes it could only be prayed that Hathaway was successful.

XXX

The two ships moved side by side through the sudden quiet. All sail was furled for every breath of wind was gone, as were the currents beneath them. In a normal sea he would have said that they had hit doldrums, for the air was still and there was a quiet that was neither common nor comfortable. But this was no doldrums and the ships continued to move despite the stillness, apparently under the prompting of something that none of them, Ariadne included, could explain.

Jack had rowed across to the other ship when the light had first changed to see what her ghost could make of it; but it seemed that she had no more answers than he did, and her ghost could see no further than the lookout on the main mast. Not a comfortable realisation that one.

They had shared a meal while they conferred on their options for an hour or so and then he had returned to his ship, knowing only too well what this strange silence would be doing to the superstitious minds of his crew. But the contact had somehow given him more heart for going on and the anger at her silence on the matter of the chest had been forgotten in pleasure of sharing a burden for once.

"Now what?" he had demanded irritably.  
Elanor had simply shrugged,  
"I don't know, but I doubt that us knowing or not knowing will affect anything anyway."  
She passed a cup of hot grog across the table and sat back to sip her own.  
After a moment of silent sipping he put it down with a grimace that had nothing to do with the beverage, which was some of the best he'd ever tasted, or so it seemed at that moment. He slowly placed the compass on the table between them and waited while they watched the hunting needle for a moment or two, then, in the face of its continuing indecision, he sighed,  
"Aye, well we are truly off the edge of the map now by my reckonin', unless you have reason to know where we are?"  
He couldn't keep the faint hope from his voice, though he cursed himself silently for it.

The woman opposite simply shook her head,  
"With the nav sats I might have done, even now, assuming we are still in the world as we know it that is. Without them and with Ariadne blind to all but the near distance I am no wiser than you."  
Jack considered that for a moment, raising his cup to his lips again before swallowing hurriedly as the full extent of them sunk in and frowning at her,  
"Still in the world we know, what do you mean by that? Off the edge of the map we might have sailed but I think I might have noticed if we had sailed over the edge of the world!"  
Elanor considered him in unsmiling silence for a moment while taking another swallow of her own drink, and then she drew a deep breath before replying.  
"Depends on what you mean by over the edge of the world. You tell me that you returned from the locker by turning a ship over, but were you aware of the crossing between two worlds?"

He stared at the table while he remembered, surprised at how much his memory did not want to co-operate. Finally his mouth twisted in a reluctant acceptance of her point,  
"No, can't say that I did. Saw the wave and felt it hit, but see us slip over the edge? No I've no recollection of that, though Elizabeth told me that they fell down a huge cascade on crossing the other way."  
"So from that we assume that the barriers between the various adjacent realities vary."  
Jack narrowed his eyes,  
"More obfuscatory language, but I take it that you mean each door looks different, and may open and close a different way."  
She smiled and nodded,  
"I knew you understood so stop playing the simple sailor Jack, we don't have time for it or the niceties. Yes the doors are different in form, and you might be right that how they open and close varies too, as might the knocker on that door."  
"Knocker?"  
"Yes, there must be a knocker or bell of some sort, and a lock otherwise the door would open whenever someone approaches it."  
"Don't recall knocking on any door meself, did you?"  
Elanor sighed,  
"No, but I can't help but wonder if those friends of yours at the temple did the knocking for us. Or if that sea goddess of yours did and they merely gave us the number for the lock."

Jack scowled, but gave the idea due, and narrow eyed, consideration before he sighed in resignation and gave a faint smile.  
"Calypso? Well I'd not say that she didn't. Very taken up with destiny she proved to be, and I was never sure that t'were only William's she was concerned with."  
The smile became a rueful grin and his voice took on a teasing note,  
"Memory tells me that Tia Dalma was not of a forgivin' disposition much of the time, though she could be generous enough when put into the right mood." He winked at her in case she didn't take his meaning.  
Elanor just smiled slightly and said nothing so he sat back, head tilted as he remembered long hot nights and even hotter, steamy days in the swamp, days that seemed like a life time ago. Finally he raised his cup again,  
"She had a bloody strange sense of the amusin' on occasions so I'd not put it past her." He added before he drained the remnants, putting the cup down with a snap.  
"But I'd not say she let this loose by intent. Chained in human form, enslaved by Jones anger and the first courts hubris, she would have been nigh on mad to be free. Couldn't expect more nor less than that. Given what had been done to her weren't likely she were in the mood to give much thought to the longer term effects of winnin' her freedom now is it, what slave would?"

Jack met Elanor's eyes, saw some deep but unreadable emotion flit through them and wondered if he had said more than was wise. At times like this he could forget who it was he was talking to and just how much those sea angel eyes could read in a book he did his best to keep locked and chained down. But she said nothing, merely nodding in apparent agreement. He cursed himself, sure she had heard something he didn't want her to, and strove for a proper piratical insouciance,  
"Not that it matters, 'tis a turned tide and things are as they are. All that matters now is that we are steerin' the right course. Not that we are steerin' of course, so to speak. But we are movin' so in the face of this…." he indicated the compass with a wave of his hand, "do we trust to whatever it is that is drivin' us or do we try to come about and sail out?"  
Elanor just shrugged,  
"That implies a choice we might not have. I don't think we could come about if we tried, even if we had the wind or current. To be honest I don't think it would make much difference what we try. You know as well as I do that that blizzard should not have hit us when and where it did."  
She drew a shape he couldn't make out on the table surface,  
"Something else is calling these shots, and I think you feel that every bit as strongly as I do."

He didn't try to pretend to misunderstand this time just looking suddenly stern and determined,  
"Aye. That it marked the stoop, the threshold," he said softly, "we have been carried over it like a young bride after her churchin' and the door has closed behind us."  
"Yes."  
"Leavin' us where do you think?"  
"In another place entirely would be my only guess. As for why I think we'll find out, and I don't think it will be long."

Now the strangeness of the world they sailed was clear to even the least experienced of his crew. Now men clustered at the rails of the Pearl no longer trying to pretend they were sailing normal waters, while Jack was silent sentinel on her bowsprit, glass held close to his eyes this last hour though there had been nothing to see since the light had changed.

The ship moved on pushed by neither wind nor water, and as they moved the silence seemed to deepen and the wind drew further away. The water no longer broke against the bow and the ship seemed through the sea like greased steel through a well used scabbard, a weapon drawn by a hand they could not see or feel. Even the cold had eased, though the ice was a thick as before, or at least it no longer froze the blood. 'As if we are no longer part of the world it freezes' Jack thought with a shiver.

He made no pretence of steering now, and he knew that the compass, closed and fixed to his belt, was spinning in an even more frantic manner than it had done on the locker shore. Cotton stood at the helm, the parrot, as silent as the crew, still parched on his shoulder, but his hands rested lightly on the wheel and more for reassurance than anything else. With no orders to be followed the decks were as silent as the stained glass world around them.

Ahead that world was darkening as if the sun had set. The sky above, if sky it was, took on the shades of twilight, blue and purples and some kind of green that none could remember seeing before. Yet there were no stars to be seen. Nor did the light have the muting quality of night, for though the ice was no longer gold and silver it shone as brightly as ever and the darker heavens presented no problems even to human sight.

He lowered the glass as he looked to their port side for he could see their companion quite clearly now. The strange light seemed to strike sparks of light from the white hull of the Dawn Chaser while deepening the shadow of the Pearl's black masts. 'Night and day together,' he thought, 'and sailing an unmoving sea. What further strangeness waits for us now?'

XXX

On the Dawn Chaser Elanor Cavendish had also noted the further change in the light but gave it little thought for Ariadne was telling of other changes, and those were more worrying.  
"The ships are changed you say? In what way Ariadne?"  
"The energy fields of the ships substances have changed."  
"Does that mean the molecular structure has been changed?"  
"I can only speak for this ship in that context, and the answer is no."  
"Then how is that possible?"  
"I cannot say only that scanners report it as a fact."  
"Very well. Are there any other changes that you can see and that might be important?"

Ariadne seemed to hesitate, and Elanor felt her heart rate rise for that was not a good sign,  
"What is it Ariadne, I can't change it but I need to be prepared, Jack will need to be prepared."  
"There are visible changes in the electromagnetic field of both yourself and Captain Sparrow. I had noticed some small but significant differences between the pair of you and the rest of the crew as soon as we came close enough for me to scan the Black Pearl fully, but now the differences are increasing. Four other entities are also affected, in that they too are becoming noticeably different from the rest."  
Elanor gave a wry smile and rubbed her eyes,  
"Let me guess, two are in the cabin?"  
"Yes."  
"Barbossa and the monkey?"  
"That would be the reasonable conclusion though I cannot state it as fact. The man shows similar changes to yourself and Captain Sparrow, while the monkey, if that is what it is, and the other two men involved appear to be less affected, though they are diverging in appearance from the other members of the crew."  
"Those two being?"  
"I cannot say but I would hypothesise they would be crewmen who sailed with Barbossa under the curse."  
Elanor stared at the wall,  
"The cause?"  
"There is insufficient information for forming a hypothesis."  
"Speculate." Her voice was tight and her throat felt dry.  
"I think you know."  
"Speculate any way."  
"Very well. The most logical explanation is that the deviation is being caused by a single factor. The men involved the monkey and the ship share a similar characteristic, one you too share."

Elanor nodded her eyes wide and blank, some unstoppable part of her mind slipping back to the past even as her thoughts raced ahead to unwelcoming territory. Her voice was low and hoarse as a shudder of understanding opened a pit in her stomach and sent adrenaline pouring into her blood.  
"Death, the once dead and the undead are being marked out from the living."

XXX


	33. Chapter 33

**Lucifers sword**

**Chapter 33 A way prepared **

There was no movement now. No sign of life.

Both ships were still, their hulls cocooned in ice and their furled sails stiff with frost. Like insects trapped in amber, held fast and safe by a frozen tether yet wrapped in chilly peace like winter stars. No hint of the blizzard's winds intruded upon them and no falling flake of snow drifted to their decks, though the wind still roared and whirling eddies of snow thickened the air within a spy glass rage. It seemed as if they were a thing apart, in a world apart.

The black timbers of the Pearl made no protest at the wrap of ice, instead silence lorded it over her decks. Nor was there movement, for no crewman scurried across those ebony planks or clambered on the frozen ropes. The light had paled to lilac, as if the evening of perpetual night had found them, and as it had done so an irresistible urge sleep had come to most of the crew. A sleep that could not be denied, however fierce the resolve to do so.

Jack had watched his crew surrender consciousness with a wry annoyance and a wakeful, though weary, sense of inevitability. As he looked around him he thought that his ship had truly become a myth, a ghost story once again, made solid in blackened wood.

Anamaria had been the last of them to succumb. Sitting beside Jack as they watched the light submit to shadow, she had fought the weariness that piled hot coals upon her eyelids and laid lead in every bone for far longer than any of the men. Realising that something more than common fatigue was involved in this sleeping she had sworn at the sky and clung to Jack as she cursed and spat and shouted her resolve to light blinded heavens, that she would remain awake to spite them. He'd not let her see his grin, knowing the futility of it while revelling in the defiance in her, but in the end she had lost the battle too as he had known that she would. Now she lay as close to peace as he thought had ever seen her, scarf slipped from her wide brow and with her tangled black hair fanned out across his knee. He watched her sleep for a short while, a hand playing gently with a strand of that hair and an almost affectionate smile curving his lips, before he settled her comfortably against a coiled rope and rose to turn and stare at the white ship.

Across the frozen ocean she waited with what seemed an eternal patience, her white timber made ethereal by the reflected glow of the ice and the lilac light, almost as if she belonged here. From this distance there was no making out what was happening on her decks but he could feel the silence rolling off her as he scanned her outline, still clear against the silver sheen sky. For a moment his heart raced and he surrendered to the lurking fear that he had been marooned again, alone on some other unknown shore he could not escape from. Memory took hold sending cold fire into his veins even as he gritted his teeth and swore at it. This ice was no less blinding than the sands of the locker and the open ocean as far away as ever it had been there. Maybe this time he was to be stranded with just a single version of himself, and he was not at all sure that was any improvement at all!

With another muttered curse at himself he crossed the decks and pulled out his glass, scanning the length of the Dawn Chaser, breathing a sigh of relief as he saw the figure of her captain appear from below decks. He watched her for a moment while he let his heart rate settle and the bile clear from his throat. Not alone then, for Elanor Cavendish seemed as untouched by this strange fatigue as he. Jack lowered the glass for a moment, frowning in thought as he scanned the sailor strewn decks, uneasily aware that whatever the ailment that affected his crew for himself he had never felt better in his life. With a half shrug he raised the glass again and resumed his watch of the other ship.

For some weeks now he had known of the ongoing influence of the water of life, at least he assumed that was the cause of his returned energy and zest for life. The bone deep weariness that had haunted him in the months after he returned from the locker was gone, and the sense of futility and vague despair that had accompanied it had now melted too. He felt himself again, perhaps for the first time since he had watched the Kraken embrace the Pearl. He was not only whole again, he was alive again, renewed again. Something hard and dangerous lay ahead, he was sure of it, and yet there was only anticipation and relish in his heart. Well… a little uneasiness perhaps, a little…. reluctance if he had to own it, and no point not doing so knowing the clear eyes of his soon to be companion in …. whatever it turned out to be. But nothing unknown, he was Captain Jack Sparrow after all and though it was true enough that he never sought battles for the sake of them it was also true that when they could not be avoided he fought as long and hard as any man. Just… less... in a straight line than many,….. more…. cannily. But battles were fought all the same.

Whatever it was that lay ahead could not be avoided, he was sure if that, and so he would square up to it and dare the devil himself to do his worst.

A thought struck him, its fist driving into his belly with a thud, and he lowered the glass again. It brought another, deeper, frown contracting as he recalled that it might, indeed, be the devil that waited for them. He shook himself then gave another careless shrug as he raised the glass again. Devil or not that was for later, and anyways how could he not win given that he was Captain Jack Sparrow and he had an angel at his right hand? Assuming she was still on her feet!

He hurriedly directed his attention to the white ship's helm.

Yes, the angel was still there, wide awake and with her head crowned in gold and silver by this strange light. Not so much as a yawn as far he could judge so it seemed she'd not go the same way as Anamaria. He ran his eye over the tidy decks, no splinter of ice seemed to mar the timbers so it would appear that her ghost, too, was awake, no doubt still haunting and would stand at their side. A comforting thought, given that she was something else to be reckoned with, though he still had to discover quite what it was that required the reckoning.

Reassured at last he lowered the glass and on a sudden whim spun to face the great cabin. There, behind those familiar scarred doors, lay the cause of all of this, curse the traitorous malevolent bugger! As he stared with narrowed eyes at the latch Jack was shaken by a sudden need to confirm that the old dog still walked in the land of the dead. With an unnecessary care he stepped over sleeping sailors as he made his way back across the decks, turning on impulse to shush an unseen object that rolled noisily somewhere before recollecting himself and glowering in the general direction of the rattle.

Yet he still reached for the latch with care, delicately manipulating it to allow a near soundless opening of the door. Carefully he peered into the frowsty gloom, sighing with something like relief when the sprawled shape of that other false claimed captain of the Pearl was lit by the strange light sliding in from the deck. He was about to withdraw when a sudden movement claimed his attention, he started intently into the gloom for a moment and then sighed noisily.  
"Why am I not surprised?" he muttered.

XXX

Across the ice floe Elanor Cavendish had known of the events on the Black Pearl, Araiadne's shortened sight still reached that far, though no further now. As each member of the Pearl's crew had fallen asleep so her sense of inevitability had increased, and when only Jack and the two hiding in the cabin remained awake she had been sure that the curtain was about rise on the final act of this particular play.  
"Sleeping Beauty," she mused as she watched the decks of the Pearl fall still and silent, "but who is the witch and where is the castle?"  
Ariadne had heard and answered, clearly following the inference.  
"I have no doubt you will be find it, for witch or not something seems to want you to do so."  
"It would seem to be the case," Elanor agreed with a wry smile, "though I couldn't begin to hazard a guess as to whom or why. But very little has made any rational sense since the moment we first arrived. Even our arrival here remains to be explained."Ariadne seemed to draw a breath before replying, though Elanor knew that was nonsense,  
"Perhaps they are all part of the same deviation from rationality,"

"Back to my fevered delusions," Elanor said thoughtfully. "Though I can't start to imagine why my subconscious should be coming up with such bizarre events. If I must have delirious dreams wouldn't paradise islands or mermaids make more sense than undead pirates and the sword of a fallen angel?"  
"There is no reason why fevered dreams should not include such elements," Ariadne replied calmly, "but I understand your point, and cannot answer it. It seems unlikely that such a complex dream reality is without some basis for it's creation but so far I have been unable to deduce what the underlying issue might be. There seems to be no consistent thread that would provide an explanation"  
There was a slight pause, and then Ariadne continued in a tone that was almost diffident,  
"The creation of Captain Sparrow makes some sense given your own history, even the water of life could be fitted within a framework of general human desires and wishes, but this particular chain of events seems to make no sense at all. Though that may change as events develop."  
"Why does that not reassure me Aridane?"  
"Experience perhaps."  
Elanor laughed,  
"Experience in this world most certainly." She sighed and headed towards the door, "But meaning or not there is no point to be served by putting what ever my subconscious is up to off. If it's not my own mind then I doubt there is much point in trying to delay either."  
With Ariadne's agreement a murmur behind her she headed for the deck.

On the decks the ethereal, rather eerie, quality of the view was undeniable. Unsettling too, at least for a woman who had thought she had seen all that the planet had to offer. She cast a thoughtful look across the ice and towards the Pearl wondering what Jack made of it. The purple silver light was not familiar, she had sailed all of the waters of the globe and never seen anything like it. She had watched the sun bleed red and the blackness of night smother day in every overheated corner of the globe, and most of the frozen ones too, but she had never experienced this kind of glow before.  
"It's as if it's not light at all," she muttered as she watched the dark shadow of the Pearl glowering against it, "not even the Northern lights have this type of quality."  
Ariadne, whose hearing could catch the smallest sound, replied in a rather subdued tone,  
"I cannot comment upon that assertion but it is notable that the scanners seem unable to determine the wavelength."  
Elanor's eyes narrowed,  
"Another impossible occurrence," she said softly, "The only way that should be the case is if it is not light at all."  
"Indeed. To be more exact not electromagnetic at all."  
"True," Elanor almost whispered, "Scary isn't it. Light that isn't light in the sense that we know it, or something entirely different to anything we have ever known."  
"At least in human times." Ariadne offered just as softly.  
Elanor frowned,  
"So tell me Ariadne, why would my mind invent something so unknown and unbelievable when it has plenty of known but strange phenomena locked in the memory banks?"  
Ariadne was eternally patient but for a moment Elanor imagined a hint of weariness in the tone of the reply,  
"You know that there is no answer to such a question, certainly not while we do not understand the point of this place."  
"So you assume it has a point?"  
"Don't you?"  
She thought about that for a moment then nodded,  
"Yes either it's my equivalent of Jack's locker or something like it, or….we are indeed somewhere where the laws of physics don't necessarily hold true." She paused for a moment, looking back towards the Pearl, "and if it's that then we both know where we are, at least in general terms. Don't we?"  
"Beyond time and space and therefore outside the main structure of physical reality and the universe."  
Ariadne did not mince her words in such circumstances.

Elanor sighed,  
"Yes, and though I know its true, and I know that you know that I know that it's true, I'd really rather you hadn't answered that question." She thought back over what she had just said, "Oh God, I think Jack speak is catching!"

XXX

There was no need for a boat for the ice was firm enough to walk on with confidence, at least it was for Jack.  
'But then he would probably walk with the same confidence over burning coals in pursuit of something he wanted.' Elanor thought as she watched him descend the sea steps and step out onto the ice with no apparent caution.  
Behind him trailed two bedraggled and somewhat woeful looking figures. Even at this distance one of them radiated misery while the other positively glowed with hard done by indignation. Pintel and Raggetti were going to regret their wakefulness before the business was finished; somehow she was sure of that. Looked like they might thing the same.  
'They escaped retribution for the deeds of their undead days,' she thought, "Or perhaps they didn't, perhaps that was just delayed and they are currently trekking towards that same reckoning. Barbossa is having to settle up, so why should they be different?"  
She watched the three figures start across the expanse of lilac tinged white between the two ships with a slight smile, ice or not it was not that cold yet she was sure that the two woebegone sailors would deny that.

Cold or not they must be very afraid.

Maybe Jack was the lucky one, his knowledge of the continuance of life was sure and his time in hell already served. Maybe he, of all the survivors of the battle with Beckett, was the one who had nothing left to make reparation for. After all only man believed that God expected unsullied perfection from the creation, God after all had never said anything of the sort. As she watched him swagger across the ice as if nothing more dangerous than a little dalliance was waiting at the end of the walk she could imagine that an all seeing deity might well consider that Jack was worth a little exercise in forgiveness.

Her faint smile became broader as a small figure suddenly appeared behind the three men. On all four feet and with tail poker straight the monkey hurried after them, its paws apparently unaffected by the cold of the ice. With a final spurt it passed the bickering sailors and launched itself up onto Jack's shoulder. She laughed as she watched Jack come to a halt, outrage written in every inch of him, his scowl almost visible at this distance. He turned his head to stare at the animal on his shoulder, dropping his hands to his hips, and his sword hilt as he did so. But the monkey seemed unmoved, wrapping its tail around its haunches and apparently tightening its grip. She could imagine the insults the two traded in the seconds of Jack's stillness. But he made no move to brush the creature away and after a moment more he raised one hand and shook a warning finger in the furry face. It was impossible to see the response but it was not so hard to imagine. Jack slowly dropped his hands and after a final stare resumed his swagger towards the Chaser.

Obviously the monkey intended to keep a simian eye on its master's interests, and Jack, for reasons of his own, was apparently content that it should. Though Elanor doubted he would tolerate it as a passenger for very long. Nor did he, as he reached the Dawn Chasers sea steps she heard him say,  
"'Tis far enough, you impudent parasite. Scedaddle now before I make a fur hat of you! Don't think I won't, would be far more use in this cold."  
The monkey's replying chatter suggested it was unimpressed by the threat, but it dropped from his shoulder and swarmed up to the Chasers deck and then up a rat line and out of human reach. There it settled itself, watching carefully as Sparrow clambered onto the white ship as if waiting to see what he would do next.

"Every one else asleep then?" she asked as he allowed her to hand him over the rail.  
"Aye, excepting this pair." He jerked his head at the head of Raggetti just emerging above the deck. "Didn't seem that I would be allowed to leave them behind so I brought them. Though I can't put me hand on me heart and tell you that I know what for luv. Useless pair of …" the last word was hurriedly swallowed and cast her an apologetic look.  
Elanor masked her grin and behaved as if she had not been aware of his sudden halt, she had noticed his tendency to watch his language in her presence before, just as she had seen him guard it in Elizabeth's; though he could have no illusions about their knowledge of any profanity he could come up with. It was one of those things that made her wonder just what nature of man was buried within the persona of Jack Sparrow.  
He glared up at the monkey again fingering his pistol in a suggestive manner before he scowled at Elanor and jerked his head in its direction,  
"Not here by my choice, flea laden mutinous wretch that it is. But there was no making it go back. In those circumstances I prefer to have the dog…..er...creature under me eye. I'd be betting that Barbossa sent it, least ways I would if there were any sign of Barbossa sendin' anything anywhere."  
"He's not woken up then? I wondered if he might when all the others went to sleep."  
That caused him to frown, then shrug,  
"Well strictly speakin I'd not be sayin' he is asleep, just …. Not here… well here … in that he's still in my bloody cabin but not…. here, with us if you take my meanin'"  
"I do. So there is something more about this than just the division of the living, dead and once dead."  
Jack gave her a narrow eyed look, and she smiled slightly. His mouth twisted slightly, then shrugged,  
"When Gibbs succumbed I knew it were more than simply havin' been to the locker, were sure when I saw that your good self were still awake."  
"Yes, I'd thought that too."

He turned away from her as he heard Pintel arrive on the deck still complaining. Pintel had probably complained the whole way and Jack's temper had suffered for it, even without the added complication of the monkey, at least that was how she interpreted his gravel voiced snarl as he rounded on the hapless pair ,  
"Stow it! Not my choice that you pair of witless maggots have been chosen for this venture is it? Find me another man awake and I'll willingly have them instead, Aye and more than willingly. But there's not another man awake on the Pearl so it has to be you. If it were me own choice I'd leave you mouldering beside that animated corpse back there, but I'm not of the mind that I have the choice. If it were then you'd be in the arms of the sand man like the rest of them. Seems to me that for some reason the…. thing that waits ahead of us wants to catch a glimpse of your unprepossessing selves. Though what that says for its foresightedness I'd prefer not to speculate."  
Elanor watched him with a smile on her face wondering just how much fear was lurking behind the acerbic words. In all honesty she could not blame him, the realisation that they would be going into something so unknown with only this pair as back up was making her uneasy too.  
"Stay here." he hissed at them. " Here I said and here I mean, not a toes length further. Keep yer hands to yerselves and yer eyes on the decks. Move and I'll be lettin' the lady's ghost make sport with yer. Savvy?"  
"Aye Capt'n." Tney said together, then glared at each other.  
Jack gave them a sour look,  
"Well mind yer do."  
After one last lingering glare he turned away towards Elanor and catching her eye jerked his head in the direction of the below decks hatch. She simply nodded and turned away, hearing only the rustle of his coat skirts against the silence as he followed after her.

XXX

"How are we supposed to find them sir, we have no indication of where they have sailed."  
Groves stared at his commander, worried and shaken by both the turn of events and his own temerity.  
"I have no expectation of doing so Mr Groves, unless it is intended that we should. But we know they headed north and we can follow in as much as we steer north too and ensure that no enemy follows their line."  
Hathaway sounded as calm as ever though there was a faint note of warning in his voice.

Groves stiffened his back and squared his shoulders, repressing the desire to ask what the other man had meant by his reference to others intentions. Hathaway's face was expressionless but Groves had no doubt that it was not the Spanish he was meaning and Groves had had more than enough of the strange to last him a life time. But nor did he doubt that something other than a normal enemy was governing Sparrow's behaviour. But then the whole world seemed touched by something other than the usual as Hathaway had commented when Groves first entered the cabin. For days now the crew had been muttering, portents seen in very shoal of fish and following bird. The men kept their voices low, the words hard for the officers to make out but no one doubted the substance of the whispers. Nor could the officers truly blame superstition for there could be no denying that the wind and the skies were behaving in a strange way. Even the sun had a tinge that he had never seen before when it showed itself and though the cold was raw he found himself praying that that sun stayed behind the clouds rather than face the sight of frightened men muttering prayers at the sight of the blood red light that seemed to drip like gore into a sea suddenly blacker than any he recalled.

A sea shot with strange mists in which odd lights flickered, the disappeared to leave holes like unshuttered windows through which no man wished to look. A sea licked by winds sprang from no where, blowing sometimes cold and sometimes warm, rips of air that seemed to speak, that whispered the knowledge of a man's fear into his ear.

If the Black Pearl had sailed this way by choice then she was on her way to something that Groves did not care to think of.

Hathaway looked up from his maps and smiled,  
"I know what the men are saying Mr Groves, and I like this turn of events no more than they do. But if Sparrow is aboard the Black Pearl then it is likely that he has the heart of Davy Jones, or what ever hold he has on the creature, with him. That must not be allowed to fall into enemy hands; you of all men must know that. You saw what Beckett did with it, do you think we would fare any better than the pirates did if one of our enemies were to gain control of it? It must be kept out of their hands, and for the moment that means that Sparrow must be kept out of their hands, for I have little doubt he knows how to use his advantage. Why else has the Flying Dutchman vanished again? I would have expected Jones to be more than willing to take his revenge upon those who spawned Beckett, that he has not been laying waste to the seas must be laid at Sparrow's door for there can be nothing else holding him back."  
He frowned,  
"We must be glad that the pirate seems to have no desire for revenge, or that other factors are holding him in check. But there can be no ease for anyone until his intentions with regards to his advantage are known."

Groves sighed,  
"Sparrow is an odd man I grant you sir, but I can see no reason why he is holding his hand in the matter."  
"Nor I, Mr Groves, nor I, other than the possibility that he has no taste for such power. A wiser man than many of that is the case. That he can pursue an end with stamina and dedication is clear from his destruction of Barbossa, at least as Mr Turner and Miss Swann reported it, and we have no reason to doubt their report."  
Groves face took on the blank expression it usually wore when Elizabeth Swann was mentioned.  
"No sir. It was clear that he had planned for that for years."  
"So it would seem. So Sparrow might yet have plans for his advantage that he has put into play, or that may be laid but unseen."  
Groves looked uneasy at that recalling how the pirate had bettered Beckett. Hathaway caught the look and smiled grimly,  
"Yes it is an uncomfortable thought, and I would welcome the chance to discuss the matter with him."  
"How could we stop him if that is his plan sir?"  
"With difficulty Mr Groves, but there are …incentives that might sway him. At least if I read him correctly."  
Groves could only wonder what incentives might be offered to a pirate but it was clear that Hathaway did not intend to say more, indeed it seemed that their conversations were at an end as the captain returned his attention to the maps,  
"Give the order to the helmsman to stay heading north Mr Groves, whatever strange events run ahead of us."

XXX

It seemed an eternity of waiting to Raggetti before the two captains returned from the below deck fastness, and one not eased by the constant under breath muttering of Pintel. He had kept his head dipped as Jack had instructed but he had risked regular squint eyed glances around the decks despite his fears. Not that there had been anything to see, in fact there was so truly nothing to see that his blood froze in his veins at the realisation. Not sight or sound of a crew, no discarded tankard, nor scrap of carved wood or flake of spilled pipe fillings were to be seen anywhere. All ship shape true enough but no sign that a man had ever worked these decks since the ship were launched. It was silent too, not a creaking timber or scurrying rodent to be heard. Quieter even than the slumbering Pearl. Uneasily he tried a few more visual gymnastics, looking for something to reassure him. The decks had the bleached white sheen of bone, the three masts towering above them were as straight and smooth as a maidens shin, the grain unmarred by burr or split and unnaturally perfect in their quiet strength. The canvas, if canvas it was, so tight furled that it made his hands ache just to look at it, the thread so dense it could not be seen in the overall whiteness of it. No, he had no difficulty in believing this was indeed a ghost crewed ship, no difficulty in believing it were a ghost ship itself at that.

He prayed silently that the two captains would be quick about what ever business had taken them out of sight, for a ghost ship was not their only worry. Beyond the ship other things were happening, things that had Pintel staring out to sea in narrow eyed worry and caused Raggetti to close his eyes in desperate hope it would be gone when he opened them.

The icy world around them had grown darker as if a lamp had been doused or a candle slowly shielded, the skies turned towards night and the silver blue light took on the mantle of a deeper purple. Within the encircling ice white fires seemed to catch light, the flickering of them sending sparks of silver out from the ice to dance around the two ships. Pintel drew a sharp breath and cursed, reaching out to grasp Ragetti's arm in a vice like grip.  
"Look at that!" he hissed an unusual awe tingeing his voice.  
"Rather not, if it be all the same to you." Raggetti muttered, "Capt'n said not to look, so I'll not. Can get real righteously indignant can Capt'n Jack in such circumstances."  
Pintel sighed in irritated virtue  
"He said not to look at the ship now didn't he? Said nothin' about not lookin' at the sea."  
Raggetti held his ground,eye still closed.  
"Don't rightly recall him mentioning what not to look at, just the general prohibition at lookin' so to speak."  
"Well no reason not to look at this, he'll be draggin' us out into it soon enough unless I'm much mistaken." A wheedling note entered Pintel's voice despite the undertone of fear, "he'd be wantin' us to be prepared I'm thinkin'"  
"Oh," Raggetti said faintly, "Aye, prepared, that he would."  
Slowly he opened his good eye and swivelled it towards the sea. Then he closed it again abruptly.

Behind them the sky had darkened to black, but it was the black of a cave mouth or a hole in ground. Somehow a chink had appeared in the sky itself through which dark mist seemed to seep, mist that looked to carry a hint of fire and noise within it for all its darkness and silence.  
"'Tis weird it is, "Pintel whispered, "eerie no less."  
Raggetti opened his eye again in time to see the descending mist appear to embrace the rising silver sparks, whirling them up into a snow storm of smoke and white fire. As the two sailors watched the silver shot mists formed themselves into a ribbon that fanned out across the ice spreading further from the ships until the out edge could no longer be seen.

Raggetti jumped as hand fell on his shoulder and he looked up the attached arm in wide eyed terror as if expecting to see the devil at the very least, only breathing again when he saw the frowning face of Jack Sparrow. As they had stared the two captains had returned and now both stood watching the ribbon widen and deepen in silence.  
"Follow the yellow brick road," Elanor muttered into Jacks ear. "Someone wants to be sure we don't get lost, or something."  
Jack grunted,  
"Aye, 'tis clear it is a breadcrumb trail of some kind, but I can't help wonder if it will be so accommodating as to show us the way back."  
"Why lead us out if it doesn't want us to come back? Barbossa is still on the Pearl after all."  
"That he is, the only crumb of reassurance we are likely to get."  
He sighed and stared up at the sky, the black void now more clearly distinguishable from the rest,  
"The mouth of hell you think, or more of your bloody quantum?" he asked.  
Elanor shot him a surprised and respectful glance,  
"Very possibly more of my bloody quantum, or something related."  
Jack snorted,  
"One day I'll get the truth of that from you," he sighed, "but not this day I expect. Still, can't be much doubt about what's required."  
Bending down he picked up the pack at his feet and stared up at the sky drawing a deep breath as something seemed to explode within it.  
Elanor watched him for a moment then bent and picked up her own pack,  
"None what so ever."  
Jack nodded then looked back to the two men beside him, doubt written in his face before he shrugged and gave Raggetti a push,  
"Time we was movin'."


End file.
